Impacts of Geographic Clusters and Network Status on Innovation Performance: An Empirical Study on Manufacturing Industry in China

As competition becomes increasingly intensified nowadays, many a corporations have become wary of their resource limitation and choose cooperating with others. By collaborative efforts they can acquire outside knowledge and resources by which firms generates better innovation performance. As the article illuminates, external factors and inter-organizational network relationships are significant conduits via which companies are able to expeditiously acquire resources and knowledge requisite for innovation. This article utilizes a social network approach and a clustering approach to explore the relationship between geographic clustering and network status and their impact on innovation performance. The results of this study may have many managerial and practical implications.