| Although an increasing body of literatures has focused on explaining the driving forces of industry clusters, the underlying causes of a knowledge-based cluster are still unclear. This research takes factors that impact innovative production as the key to understand the driving force of a knowledge-based cluster. The study argues that regional innovative production depends not only on the sizes of human capital and knowledge pools, but also on the speed and relevancy rate that human capital and knowledge combine. For empirical testing, an approach of structural equations with latent variable is employed under the case of biotechnology industry in the U.S. The results of the empirical model support such a hypothesis, suggesting that factors that increase the sizes of human capital and knowledge pools as well as the speed and relevancy rate that human capital and knowledge capital combine are critical to regional innovative production, and thus, the clustering of a knowledge-based industry. Hence, it has important implications for devising appropriate regional development policy and business strategy. |
