Abstract: The report of the 19th CPC National Congress proposes to "cultivate world-class enterprise with global competitiveness", which provides a broad space for theoretical research and also points out the direction and goals for Chinese leading enterprises. Facing intense competition in the globalized economy, it is wise for Chinese leading enterprises to cooperate with universities and research institutes through dynamic processes of knowledge and technology communication and exchange, so as to improve their responses to customers′ demands. Due to organizational inertia and path dependence, most of Chinese enterprises emphasize short-term returns and fears innovation failure with regard to Industry-University-Research-User (IURU) collaborative innovation. The necessities of basic research inputs and applied research inputs from universities and research institutes are not given much attention for most of Chinese enterprises, which leads to the low rate of transformation of scientific and technological achievements. The major reasons probably lie in: (a) seldom Chinese leading enterprises have in-house basic research and applied research capabilities, and their internal technological innovation system are neither complete nor professional, and (b) the absence of effective IURU collaborative innovation mode combining management mechanisms to align different innovation stakeholders, making it hard to for Chinese leading enterprise to absorb and integrate external basic research and applied research inputs in a good manner. However, relatively little research has addressed the IURU collaborative innovation issues especially for leading enterprises under Chinese scenario, and the framework of their technological innovation system is not well understood. The above background constitutes the focus of this article′s research: how to improve the technological innovation system of Chinese leading enterprise combining the IURU collaborative innovation model, and then provide strong support for the implementation of the national strategy of cultivating Chinese leading enterprise?
After the brief introduction ofresearch background, firstly, we review the existing literature about the concept of world-class enterprise, and then analyze their technological innovation characteristics and nurturing paths, as well as the need for the IURU collaborative innovation. The Hewlett-Packard laboratory case is adopted to illustrate how the global leading enterprise pilot is successful in technological innovation and its industrialization. One of the key findings is that the basic research and applied research functions shall be configured for the leading enterprises, not only for its internal R&D purpose, but also act as an indispensible linkage between corporate requirements and external innovation inputs. Moreover, we review the related research progress of the IURU collaborative innovation and summarize the research gap.
Secondly,considering the impacts of modularity (product modularity, organizational modularity and platform modularity) on technological innovation of leading enterprises, we bridge the IURU collaborative innovation theory, modularity theory and platform thinking, and build a platform modularity-based IURU collaborative innovation model featuring customer-driven and leading enterprise as the core, in which we incorporate the end-user interaction platform, resource integration platform, innovation incubation platform, and industrialization platform, and each of them have organizational modules with specific functions. Correspondingly, there exist coupling effects among these platforms associated with the IURU collaborative innovation chains. In this regard, the multidirectional interaction relationship can be realized among the participants of IURU collaborative innovation.
Thirdly, Haier Group, the Chinese leading enterprise active in the home appliance industry is utilized as the case study. In this case study, the motivate of Haier Group′s IURU collaborative innovation is explained therein, and the IURU collaborative innovation effects under product modularity, organization modularity and platform modularity are compared from views of user-collaboration, resource-collaboration, and organization-collaboration. Implementing management mechanisms for coordinating relationships between the leading enterprise and external partners is important for achieving IURU collaborative innovation, in light of this, the platform modularity-based IURU collaborative innovation mechanisms of Haier Group are explained in this section, which facilitates the timely interaction combining sustainable cooperation between the leading enterprise and its partner.
The study contributes to the IURU collaboration innovation theory by embedding the modularity theory and platform thinking. With that, the interaction and cooperation between the leading enterprise and its external partners can be made more efficient. Particularly, the platform thinking strategy can not only positively enhance the technological innovation of Haier Group, but also help promote the win-win result within the proposed IURU collaborative innovation model. At the product modularity stage, all parties cooperate with each other to carry out information interaction using modules as an interactive carrier. The module interface can eliminate the obstacles to innovation triggered by factors such as information asymmetry and subject differences. At the organizational modularity stage, the leading enterprise constructs unique innovation modules to enhance its technological innovation capabilities including the National Key Laboratory, the National corporate R&D Center and the National Engineering Laboratory, with that, Haier Group achieves modular division of labor in its technological innovation system which in turn facilitates the IURU collaborative innovation. At the stage of platform modularity, IURU collaborative innovation has entered a new level. On one hand, the proposed  platform modularity-based IURU collaborative innovation model can help the leading enterprise interact with a wider range of universities and research institutes in an uncertain environment; On the other hand, universities and research institutes can innovate and incubate on the platform to generate breakthrough innovations, which is conducive to solidifying the cooperative relationship between universities, research institutes and leading enterprise, and even incubate more valuable innovations or new industries through IURU collaborative innovation.
As far as the practical contribution is concerned, the study of IURU collaborative innovation from the angle of modularity at the micro level of Chinese leading enterprise is at the center of this article. The research enriches the understanding of how product modularity, organizational modularity and platform modularity enhance the IURU collaborative innovation in different way, which helps entrepreneurs understand how to strategize to restructure their internal technological innovation system as well as the IURU collaborative innovation network in a broader context during their technological innovation decisions and implementations. Meanwhile, the case study of Haier Group′s IURU collaborative innovation practice in conjunction with product modularity, organizational modularity and platform modularity, can also be of useful references for Chinese leading enterprises in other industries for benchmarking and strategizing purposes.

Key words: industry-university-research-user, collaborative innovation, platform, modularity, Haier