Analysis of differences in innovation capacity and performance of SMEs clusters

Abstract

By integrating new growth theory and evolutionary economics theory and using new perspective of open innovation, the paper takes the 54 state-level high-tech industrial development zones as a sample. It analyzes the mechanism between SME clusters' innovation capacity and cluster performance. The empirical results show that innovation input of enterprises in the cluster has the most important impact on the international market of clusters. Open innovation resources as University R & D expenditure, research institution's & D expenditures and provincial technical market transactions contract amount have positive spillovers on the cluster innovation capabilities and therefore affect the cluster performance. © 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.