The Complex Network Analysis of Competitive Relationships between Manufacturers in Foshan Ceramic Industry Cluster

Competition between companies in microlevel has been greatly developed in academic research. While at the macro level, due to the huge quantities of companies in an industry, among which competitive relationships are quite complex, there are many barriers for the conclusions in micro competition research to be placed in the macro context. However, the development of complex network theories has allowed us to depict the relationship between companies with network. In terms of complex network, we will not be able to study microcompetition behavior before we could properly depict the topological feature of the competition relationship network (CRN) between companies. This paper chooses 662 main ceramic manufacturers in Guangdong Foshan ceramic industry cluster to construct a CRN, and it proves that the network defined by competition relationship is a highly clustered scale-free network which exhibits small-world feature. We think the growth, preferential attachment and old nodes to establish new connection are the main dynamic mechanism of the network. What is more, we find that the oldest nodes in the network do not have the highest degree, and give our explanation to the interesting phenomenon. It may be the split of old nodes, or the aging or decrepitude mechanism during the evolution process of the network