关键词: 企业创新, 福特-后福特, 二元选择模型, 珠江三角洲

Abstract:

With the advent of knowledge economy, innovation has become the key element in growth and development. Ample literature in regional innovation system suggests that firm network under the support of knowledge-related institution underlies the success of clusters. In the innovation studies, firm-level innovation strategies and behaviors are among the most important aspects in investigating the regional innovation prospect. Unlike the mechanic comparison between regional innovation systems among places, this article begs the question of what constitutes the innovation drives for the clustering firms in the Zhujiang River Delta, China, where the Fordist production sector relocated by multi-national corporations is intricately intertwined with post-Fordist mode of flexible production among small and medium sized supplier firms. Based on a random-sampled electronics firm questionnaire survey in the Zhujiang River Delta, this article begins by analyzing the Fordist-post Fordist way of production system in terms of production network, labor market, financial system, innovation system and business mode in the Zhujiang River Delta, concluding a close-oriented Fordist character in labor market, financial system and innovation system with relatively flexible way of production and business relations under the support of social capital. The study further investigates the innovation mechanism within this context of production system by building a probit model. In the model, the effect of firm scale, R&D investment, CEO background, staff turnover rate and urbanization economies on firm innovation have been examined. Moreover, the model succeeds in differentiating the effect of these factors between four types of innovation, i.e. product innovation, process innovation, organizational innovation and market innovation. The results show that while the production relations among the firms has become more vertically fragmented and flexible, innovation activities still keep the Fordist “in-house” characteristic, for which the firms with bigger market share act as the primary actor of product innovation and organizational innovation in the region. Meanwhile, R&D investment in the firms plays a more important role in promoting innovation, especially in product innovation and process innovation, than urbanization economies. The results show that interactive learning dynamic mechanism of clusters has not been developed based on the post-Fordist flexible production organization of small and medium-sized firms in the Zhujiang River Delta, which might be closely related to the insufficient intensity of internal innovation activities as well as low absorptive capacity for the electronics firms. The findings provide precious evidence on innovation mechanism in the pre-crisis period in the Zhujiang River Delta. From an evolutionary perspective, the evolutionary path in the future is contingent upon the previous cluster structure and trait, and hints on upgrading and restructuring path of electronics industrial cluster can be illuminated on the basis of understanding on former structure and mechanism. Finally, the article points out studies on different types of electronics industrial clusters in the Zhujiang River Delta should be investigated deeper with insight into divergent governance mode and the respective evolutionary logic. Moreover, qualitative interviews with anchor firms should be carried out to explore the role of strategic re-orientation of anchor firms on the turnaround of market and technology in the cluster.

Key words: firm-level innovation, Fordism-post Fordism, probit model, the Zhujiang River Delta