The role of cluster cycle and pattern of interaction to competition strategy

Many studies show that industrial clusters have been successfully promoting the progress of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Therefore, many governments around the world, including Indonesia, enthusiastically perform comparative studies of cluster policy. Thus, it is important to understand the characteristics of the business of small and medium industries as input in formulating the policy of industrial clusters. Research objectives are focused on the early stages of analysis as to whether the cluster of wood and rattan furniture industry which has existed long enough in Jepara, Central Java, Indonesia, has formed a pattern of awareness among employers in considering the benefits proportionally between cooperation and competition. In various scientific literature reviews, this issue was named by the term coopetition. Thus, the benefits of this research are useful in formulating policy toward strengthening the industrial cluster furniture and rattan towards a more integrative of industrial clusters, and supporting industries involve complex, well integrated backward (backward linkage) and integrated into the front (forward linkage). In the end, it is expected that increasingly mature industrial clusters of wooden furniture and rattan will be transformed into a form of industrial agglomeration and positively impact on strengthening the competitiveness of the furniture industry widely influential in regional and national economy.
The test results show that nearly all of the dimensions of a differentiator (discriminant factor) are significant by influence on differentiating into three patterns of interaction between companies in the cluster of wooden furniture and rattan, while there is only one dimension that is not significant, i.e., the horizontal dimension of cooperation. These results indicate that the industrial cluster of wooden furniture and rattan in Jepara have long formed, where the cycles and patterns of cooperation are factors that could indicate variations in differences concerning perceptions of entrepreneurs in the wood and rattan furniture cluster. Results of the analysis with the approach of the discriminant also show the forming awareness of employers about balancing the important role of competition. It is, as well as cooperation in the industrial cluster wood and rattan furniture from Jepara being already cycle of clusters, characterized by maturity. The cooperation is characterized by bilateral, multilateral, and vertical indicating that the cluster is ready to metamorphose into a form more complicated than an agglomeration. This condition needs to be examined further to see the impact of the maturity cycle of an industrial cluster and more complex patterns of cooperation towards the formation prerequisite agglomeration, and its impact on industrial performance and competitiveness clusters in the aggregate, as well as the economic development of the region