Effects of Informal Contracts on Innovative Cooperation among Enterprises in Industrial Clusters: An Evolutionary Game Analysis

Industrial cluster theory has important guiding significance for regional industrial development and industrial agglomeration advantages. Cooperation among enterprises is the corner stone of industrial clusters. The purpose of the paper is to explore the effects of cluster informal contracts on cluster enterprises and the behavior of external partners. Based on the dynamic evolutionary game theory, this paper constructs a model, which incorporates several main factors influencing the innovative cooperation among local and external cluster enterprises. By calculating the replicator dynamics equations and analyzing the evolutionary stable strategies, this paper discusses the evolution process of cooperation strategies of enterprises in different situation. Furthermore, by using MATLAB software to simulate the model, this paper verifies the accuracy and reliability of the game model. Results show that, in addition to the formal market contract, effective implementations of cluster informal contracts can reduce opportunistic behavior in innovative cooperation among internal and external enterprises. Meanwhile, we should pay attention to strengthen the external innovative cooperation, increase severity of penalties, enhance the credit network externality, and avoid the relevant risks. The paper enriches our understanding about how informal contracts can help promote and cultivate good cooperative order in innovative cooperation of clusters.