Sembolik Bilgi Tabanlı Sektörlerde Bilgi, Öğrenme ve İnovasyon Kanalları: Trabzon Kuyumculuk Kümesi Örneği

Competition is a key factor for firms to hold on in the markets, and the key to this lock is innovation. The basis of innovation is knowledge and learning. Knowledge and learning skills builds through a cumulative processes. Clusters serve as a pool for this accumulation, and are the production base of knowledge and learning.Our study aims to determine the knowledge channels and learning processes required for innovation activities of firms. For this, it was chosen the symbolic knowledge-based Trabzon jewelry cluster that have a natural cluster property. In addition, it is another aim of the study to determine difference between these channels with the innovation level of firms. The data obtained through surveys were analyzed both descriptively and statistically with SPSS. According to the results, firms in the clustering perform their innovation processes through local and non-local connections. The importance of these connections varies according to the level of innovation of firms. Firms with a high level of innovation use local knowledge more often. The study target to contribute to the literature, analyzing the local and non-local connections of knowledge and learning processes in a traditional cluster.