THE EFFECT OF AGGLOMERATION ON INNOVATION: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to examine the effect of agglomeration on innovation. The research’s population constitute business owner and managers operating in the furniture sector in İnegöl, Bursa, in the TR41 region in Turkey. 225 business, which are members of İnegöl Furniture Industrialists Association (İMOS) that is consisted of clustered firms, were chosen as the sample frame. Simple random sampling method, which is a probability-based sampling technique, was used to determine the number of samples. Reached sample size is 384 for this research. The obtained datas were analyzed with SPSS 21 package programme. The data obtained by face-to-face survey method were tested with frequency, factor, reliability, correlation, and regression analysis. The analyses revealed that agglomeration significantly increased firm innovation level. In addition, agglomeration has statistically significant and positive effect on innovation in the clustered firms were determined.

Keywords

• Agglomeration
• Innovation
• Cluster
• Geographic Concentration
• Furniture Sector
• Bursa
• Turkey

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