A Comparative Study of High Tech Clusters and Corporate Innovation in UK and China: The Roles of Knowledge and Environmental Factors

Abstract

High tech clusters become a common feature in the modern economy and do tend to be beneficial for startups as well as to a region as a wealth creator. High tech clusters attract corporate to the area and corporates within these tech clusters are more competitive, so their corporate growth is driven by strategies that are focused on promoting innovation. Innovation is essential for the corporate growth. Empirical studies found that there is a positive effective on high-tech clusters on innovation and yet many corporations are struggling or fail in their attempt to become successful innovators. It’s because due to a lack of focus on knowledge flow and the business environment. This study will discuss innovation as a critical success factor in corporate competition as well as corporate growth and will explore the mediating role of knowledge and the moderating roles of environmental factors. On the basis of matched survey data obtained from 120 manufacturing firms in high-tech clusters in the United Kingdom and China. Our analysis will show that even though high-tech clusters form a key element to innovations, their impacts on such innovations are fully mediated by knowledge. Our result shows that the impact of the environment is having many different aspects; In particular, the environment hostility and environmental uncertainty weakens the effect of high-tech clusters on knowledge fact, while environmental complexity strengthens it. The theoretical and practical implications of this study and its limitations are also discussed.