关键词: 企业股权关联, 城市网络, 节点层级, 网络组织, 长三角地区

Abstract:

Currently, existing articles about urban network from the perspective of firm relationship mainly use frims’ spatial and organizational structure to quantify intra-firm linkages, and then to study connections between cities. However, such research method neglects inter-firm linkages, especially those linkages among different-industry firms, resulting in thelack of authenticity in establishing urban network. Investment linkages between enterprises often bring the flow of institutions, knowledge and talents, which opens a new window for the study of inter-firm linkages. Therefore, this study uses investment data of all-industry enterprises published by ‘Tian Yan Cha’ website to propose an alternative way for establishing urban network. The data of ‘Tian Yan Cha’ website are authorized by the State Administration of Industry and Commerce, and have been widely used in business investigation and economic research. Through digging out all possible investment linkage routes between each two firms from massive data, this study chooses the Yangtze River Delta as the empirical strudy area in order to discover some new characteristics of urban network in node hierarchy and link under the support of real enterprises’ investment behavior. The study results show that in directed urban network, Shanghai, Hangzhou and Hefei are regional capital distribution centers. Among these cities, Shanghai is the linkage hub of the whole region, while Hangzhou and Hefei dominate their provincial cities respectively. One interesting phenomenon is that Shanghai produces strong effects on cities of Jiangsu Province, which indirectly weakens Nanjing’s network status. Nanjing's disadvantaged status is also related to its insufficient amount of data involved in the analysis, which implies that Nanjing’s firms prefer investing outside the Yangtze River Delta. In undirected urban network, cities’ intermediary effect vary dramatically, the strength of Shanghai and Hangzhou becomes more obvious. At the same time, the network status of some peripheral cities including Huaibei and Quzhou has been significantly promoted, and the former city has an energy tycoon firm producing large amount of investment linkages and the latter city is famous for its ‘family firms’. As the intermediary hub, Shanghai stimulates the integration process of the Yangtze River Delta while Hangzhou and Hefei mainly play the role of ‘bridge’ in connecting their provincial cities and Shanghai. There are nearly none prominent intermediary nodes in Jiangsu Province, which demonstrates that there is great room for Nanjing to improve its network status. There are 3 research topics deserve further attention. The first is the investment amount is more accurate in quantifying urban linkages than investment frequency. Secondly is study on single-industry firm investment may explain why gap exists between some city’s network status and their economic status. The last is that the massive firm investment data inevitably lead to magnitude differences, how to eliminate the influence of data quantity on the basis of guaranteeing network characteristics remains to be explored.

Key words: firm investment linkage, urban network, node hierarchy, network organization, the Yangtze River Delta