Innovation and Networks in Industrial Clusters: Empirical Results from Three Large Cities - Technopolis: Best Practices for Science and Technology Cities - page 263

cooperative projects or researches to be the most important source of innovation.
The result that cooperative projects or researches are the most important source of
innovation is not surprising.
The second most important source of information for the Gwangju photonics
industry and Daejeon ICT industry, when it comes to innovation, is the patent
information, technology information, paper, Internet, and others. A 21.1 % of the
surveyed ICT-related enterprises in Daejeon regarded explicit knowledge to be the
second most important source. The Gwangju photonics-related enterprises cited
explicit knowledge and formal contact as the second most important source. In
Busan, formal consulting was cited as the second most important source for
innovation. As is the case in the experience of innovation, the Busan mechanical
parts and materials industry shows different tendency from the other two industries
in Daejeon and Gwangju regarding the source of innovation. Table 3 also shows
that informal contacts with ex-colleagues and friends seldom play a crucial role.
3.3.2 Innovation Partner
This part deals with the key actors among innovation partners in the strategic
industry cluster in the three regions. Enterprises were asked to indicate if they are
associated with the following categories of innovation partners: suppliers, clients,
supporting agencies, universities, and research institutes. The respondents had to
consider only those partners who actually made a contribution to their innovation
creation. In general, customers are more important than suppliers who often ini-
tiate modifications of products or development of new products (Kaufmann and
Tödtling 2000 ). Sometimes they are even involved in the development process
itself (Kaufmann and Tödtling 2000 ). Besides buyers and suppliers, knowledge
providers and service providing firms such as universities, research organizations,
and consultants are important innovation partners.
In the strategic industries of the three metropolitan cities, customers are the
most important innovation partners. Though the principal value chain of the
strategic industry of the three cities are the user-supplier relationship, the signif-
icance of universities as innovation partner is very low. In substance, no matter
what type of R&D is carried out, in the innovation projects, the public research
labs are also more important than universities as innovation partner.
In the Daejeon ICT industry, the contact with research institutes is very strong due
to the strong ICT knowledge base such as the ETRI. In the Daejeon region, 28.3 % of
the enterprises performed innovation activities in collaboration with public research
institutes. In the Busan mechanical parts and materials industry, suppliers are as
important, as cooperative partner, as the Gwangju and Daejeon research institutes in
the process of innovation. Research institutes are less favored as innovation partner
by Busan enterprises than those in Gwangju or Daejeon (Table 4 ).
A possible explanation for this is the difference in the institutional environment
and industrial characteristics. The reason the Busan enterprises less utilize
universities and public research institutes as innovation partner than product-