Alliance-Adding Cluster Means Icing on the Cake: The Impact of Geographic Proximity, Regional Location, and Network Structural Characteristics on Firm Innovation Performance in Alliance Innovation Network

Abstract

For firms, entering industrial cluster means obtaining more opportunities for tacit knowledge transfer and informal communication, while forming strategic alliances can get a wider range of technical cooperation and strategic resources. Using innovation networks in the communication equipment industry of China, based on the impact of network density on innovation performance, we give firms dynamic characteristic in the geographical position to study the impact of regional location and the moderation effect of geographic proximity on the relationship between network density and innovation performance. The results of negative binomial regression method indicate that regional location do not have a significant effect on innovation performance, while geographic proximity has a significant effect on innovation performance, and geographic proximity can positively moderate the impact of network density on innovation performance. Then the authors further analyze some conditions concerning alliances of the Chinese communication equipment industry and offer some related suggestions.