Analysis of Network Structure of a Food Sub-Cluster : Case Study of the Health-Related Industry Clustering in Niigata Prefecture, Japan

The present paper aims to analyze the network structure of food sub-cluster through a case study of health-related industry clustering in Niigata prefecture, Japan. First, an outline of the policy and market trends of health-related industries in Japan is summarized, and a survey of existing research on business alliance and network formation is presented. Next, the transaction network among member enterprises of the cluster conference initiated by private companies aiming to develop health-related industries is analyzed. The following analytical results were obtained. First, we clarified that this cluster still existed at the early stages of the cluster formation through analysis of the transactional relationship among the conference member enterprises. Therefore, the effect of knowledge creation and spillover closely related to the generation of innovations after a certain period must be verified in the future Moreover, as a result of the analysis on the structure of the transaction network among the food manufacturing companies, the main industry of the cluster, the existence of the network of a small-world type is considered to induce efficient distribution of knowledge and information, and productive activities are unable to be confirmed. However, we clarified that the core enterprises that were considered to form a food sub-cluster within the health-related industrial cluster take the strategy of global-local activity, i.e. selling their products to the domestic markets in metropolitan areas while remaining located in their local place in Niigata Prefecture, and developing an overseas market as a result of the classification of the network community. In other words, a new health-related industry is being created by catching the public needs for health, and attractiveness of the food industry is being simultaneously increased through competition and cooperation among the core enterprises. Finally, in the future, it is necessary to verify the most effective ways for business alliance and structure for networks that correspond to the developmental of the industrial cluster through interview surveys and quantitative analyses based on the original surveys to determine the ideal way for regional development under globalization