FACTORS AFFECTING THE DECISION OF SMES’ TO BE INVOLVED IN CLUSTER COOPERATION

Various research studies have already reported many benefits of cluster cooperation for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), but the factors´ assessment leading them to be joined in this form of business are still missing. This research contributes to fill this gap by a broader analysis accomplishment within three perspectives: the SMEs’ size category, the cluster cooperation experience and the typology being related to Slovak clusters. The main aim of this study is to identify the most important reasons that drive SMEs to engagement into cluster cooperation and by means of exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to group them into main factors affecting the SMEs’ decision about clustering. These outcomes are based on questionnaire survey results conducted among 1018 Slovak SMEs. We evaluated the SMEs’ perception of ten identified reasons by using the Chi-square independence test and Cramer’s V. The EFA results indicated two main factors. The results highlighted the importance of clustering to SMEs, policy makers and other stakeholders.