Abstract:    A well-legalized business environment provides a strong guarantee for semiconductor enterprises in terms of patent protection, cooperation promotion, and construction of innovation ecology around the supply chain, which is of great significance for promoting their innovation quality. This paper focused on the major practical issue of how the legalized business environment affects the innovation quality of semiconductor enterprises. Using the data of cities and listed semiconductor enterprises from 2017 to 2021, this paper examined the direct mechanisms and the indirect mechanisms related to supply chain. The findings are as follows: First, the legalized business environment can improve the quality of enterprise innovation from the aspects of enterprise patent quality and transformation of scientific and technological achievements. Second, it mainly promotes the innovation quality of semiconductor enterprises by promoting the diversification of supply chain network, the efficient operation of supply chain and the information transparency of supply chain. Third, the positive impact of the legalized business environment on innovation quality is more obvious in non-state-owned enterprises and enterprises with low innovation levels. Additionally, local government support and digitization are important external conditions for the legalized business environment to play an active role. Based on the above research conclusions, this paper has put forward relevant policy recommendations to comprehensively improve the innovation quality of semiconductor enterprises by taking the construction of a legalized business environment as the main line, giving full play to the key role of supply chain in enterprise innovation.

Key words:  legalized business environment, semiconductor enterprise, supply chain, patent quality, transformation of scientific and technological achievement