The effect of collaboration quality on collaboration performance: empirical evidence from manufacturing SMEs in the Republic of Korea

This study focuses on collaboration by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) participating in the Mini-Cluster (MC) programme of Korea. This study empirically examines whether three types of collaboration quality, specifically inter-organisational trust, breadth of interaction channels, and experience of collaboration are related to two dimensions of collaboration performance, innovation output, and satisfaction with MC. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were used to provide a better understanding of the subjects of this study. Two rounds of in-depth interviews as qualitative method were conducted to discover the current state of MCs and to supplement the interpretation of the research results. Structural equation modelling as a quantitative method was used to verify the hypotheses based on survey data from 344 SMEs in MCs. According to the results, the three collaboration quality factors are significantly related to innovation output. Unlike innovation output, however, only the relationship between inter-organisational trust and satisfaction with MC was significant. With these findings, MC coordinators and SMEs in MCs can identify specific collaboration strategies to enhance their collaboration performance.