FIRM CHARACTERISTICS, KNOWLEDGE NETWORKS AND INNOVATIVENESS IN INDUSTRIAL CLUSTERS

Abstract

In this article, it was aimed to determine the relationship between the characteristics of firms such as firm age, size, entrepreneurship experience, innovation activities, economic performance and knowledge networks. With the changes experienced in the regional development paradigms since 1980's, apart from the studies on networks, political and academic discussions on the concept of innovation have intensified in the literature of economic geography. Networks is component most important both manufacturing organization and knowledge absorptive and flow. Cooperations established obtaining process in knowledge increase firm's learning and competitive. In this sense, the article is based on the hypothesis that there is a strong relationship between the characteristics of firm such as firm age, size, entrepreneurship experience, innovation activities, economic performance and networks. The study is based on the fieldwork data carried out in 81 firms of Ankara and 89 firms of Konya. In the scope of data obtained by the survey study carried out with 81 firms in Ankara and 89 firms in Konya; relationship between firm characteristics and knowledge networks were analyzed. As a result of analysis, although there is a strong relationship between firm's characteristics such as firm age, size, entrepreneurship experience, innovation activities, economic performance and knowledge networks, the relationship will be different in terms of region's socio-cultural features. It was detected that medium and large-scaled firms, firms which have high capacity in terms of production/sales and firms which have high connection with national/global networks in terms of knowledge networks have high innovation capacity.