PROGRESS IN GEOGRAPHY ›› 2019, Vol. 38 ›› Issue (6): 861-871.doi: 10.18306/dlkxjz.2019.06.007

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Innovation pathways and spillover effects of agricultural industrial clusters: A case of vegetable production industrial cluster in Shouguang City, Shandong Province

Yanwen SHI1(), Erling LI2, Xiaojian LI1,2, Shixin REN2   

  1. 1. Collaborative Innovation Center of Urban-Rural Coordination / Academician Workstation for Urban-Rural Spatial Data Mining, Henan University of Economics and Law, Zhengzhou 450018, China
    2. College of Environment and Planning/Institute of Agriculture and Rural Sustainable Development, Henan University, Kaifeng 475004, Henan, China
  • Received:2018-12-11 Revised:2019-03-06 Online:2019-06-28 Published:2019-06-27
  • Supported by:
    National Natural Sciences Foundation of China, No. 41701197;Youth Fund Project of Humanities and Social Sciences of the Ministry of Education, No. 17YJC790125;Philosophy and Social Sciences Planning Project of Henan Province, No. 2018CJJ070, No. 2017CJJ083;Key Scientific Research Projects of Universities of Henan Province, No. 18A790007;Humanities and Social Sciences Research Project of Henan Provincial Department of Education, No. 2018-ZZJH-011.

Abstract:

The innovation of agricultural industrial clusters is a process of integration of various relationships, while the development of modern agricultural clusters cannot be separated from the local and global contexts. Hence, it is of great theoretical and practical significance to study the innovation of agricultural clusters and its spillover effects with regard to the local and global network relationships. Taking the Shouguang Vegetable Production Industrial Cluster as an example and using field survey data obtained in 2017, and social network analysis and a spatial econometric model, this study analyzed the pathways and spillover effects of cluster innovation. The results show that: 1) The cluster's local connections include a strong local enterprise network and a weak government-industry-university-research network, in which the agglomeration of the local enterprises is prominent, and the enterprises are closely linked. The core enterprises in the two relationship networks have a strong control over resource and information. 2) As a weak link outside the cluster, the global network has a low density of network links. The network as a whole shows the characteristics of structural holes, and its core node enterprises show strong control over overseas resource heterogeneity. The spatial error model is better than other models in measuring the spillover effects of cluster innovation, in which the cluster's local enterprise relationship, inter-enterprise spatial proximity, and global relationship all play a certain role in promoting cluster innovation. Further mechanism analysis shows that local relationship links and global relationships play different roles in cluster innovation, and the interaction between strong and weak relationships is the key to the diffusion, absorption, and utilization of heterogeneous innovation resources.

Key words: agricultural industrial clusters, innovation pathways, spillover effects, social network, Shouguang City