Network based Determinants of Innovation Performance in Yacht Building Clusters: Findings of the SOBAG Project

This paper presents the findings of a research project that was conducted to analyze the network based determinants of innovation performance in yacht building clusters of Turkey. The findings of this research specifically address the research gap in literature on the determinants of the innovativeness and competitiveness of yacht building firms, and also contribute to the discussion on the structural characteristics of the business networks of industrial clusters. The paper presents the findings relating to the innovation performance of 143 yacht/boat building firms included in the study and relates these to the structure of their networks at local, national and global levels. The findings demonstrate that the only network feature that has an impact on innovation performance is the total size of strategic alliances rather than the total size of the local, national or global networks, and the expected association between innovation performance and business performance is confirmed.