Collaborative Strategy in Small and Medium Industries

Abstract

This study examined the collaboration strategies that mediate the influence of the qualifications of SMIs managers, which include expertise, experience, education, and networking on company performance. The population of this study was small and medium industries supporting industrial clusters in one of the small industrial areas in the city of Bandung. There were 53 SMIs in the area. The number of samples observed with an accuracy of 5% were 23 companies, and in this study, 30 SMIs were investigated. The data were collected by distributing questionnaires and interviews to the SMIs owners or management. To get a profile about the owners of SMIs, categorization was carried out based on age, gender, length of business, and activity in associations. Questions on the questionnaire include skills, experience, education, networking, collaboration strategies, and company performance. The method used was path analysis, and it was found that expertise and networking have a significant effect on collaboration strategies and company performance. The influence of the skill variable with the communication indicator (X1) on the partnership strategy variable (collaboration) with the marketing network indicator (X11) directly is 32.4%. The effect of the networking variable with the business relationship indicator (X9) on the partnership strategy variable (collaboration) with the marketing network indicator (X11) directly is 14.7%.