Abstract:    In the complex situation where the century change and the epidemic of the century are overlapping how to fully stimulate and release the endogenous power of innovation and development of technological small and micro enterprises, enhance enterprises′ innovation performance, and help national technological innovation and industrialization have become hot topics.
   Involving various external stakeholders in the innovation process can improve the innovation performance of technological small and micro enterprises to a certain extent. Customers, as important external stakeholders of enterprises, are an important source of competitive advantage for enterprises. However, their effect on the innovation performance of technological small and micro enterprises has rarely been studied. Drawing on service dominant logic and the theory of planned behavior, this paper explores the influence mechanism of customer engagement on the innovation performance of technological micro and small enterprises, introduces value co-creation behavior and enterprise innovation performance into the study to investigate the influence of customer engagement on innovation performance, the mediating effect of value co-creation behavior and the moderating effect of innovation climate.
    A total of 358 sets of customer-employee matched data were collected from 56 technological micro and small enterprises in central China. AMOS 21.0 was used for confirmatory factor analysis to test the discriminant validity of the variables; SPSS 26.0 was used for the multiple regression analysis to verify the research hypotheses; the bootstrapping method was applied by Process Macro to further examine the mediating effect of value co-creation behavior and the moderating effect of innovation climate. The empirical results are as follows: First, customer engagement positively influences innovation performance. Second, value co-creation behavior partially mediates the relationship between customer engagement and innovation performance. Third, innovation climate positively moderates the effect of customer engagement on value co-creation behavior.
    The conclusions of this paper make the following theoretical contributions, First, customer engagement is an external innovation resource that can be utilized by enterprises, and effective management of this resource can transform enterprise-wide innovation into broader innovation involving both customers and enterprises. In other words, customers who are highly engaged in the enterprise will actively explore and express their real and potential needs, and actively participate in the innovation process of the enterprise, which helps improve the enterprise′s innovation performance. Second, the effect of customer engagement on innovation performance is mediated by value co-creation behavior. Customer engagement, as a psychological state, explains the motivation of customers to participate in innovation, and only with motivation can they generate value co-creation behavior, then, this behavior has an effect on an enterprise′s innovation performance. Third, the innovation climate, as an indispensable factor in the innovation process, is an important boundary condition for customer engagement to affect value co-creation behavior. An intense innovation climate will strengthen the effect of customer engagement on value co-creation behavior, that is, customer engagement and innovation climate play a synergistic role in value co-creation behavior.
   The conclusions of this paper have some implications for the management practices of technological micro and small enterprises. Firstly, enterprises attach importance to the role of customers and to enhancing customer engagement. When formulating innovation performance improvement strategies, enterprises should consider customers as the focus, pay special attention to customers′ needs for interests and trust so that customers are willing to rely on and become close to the enterprises, and improve the fit between customers and enterprises. Secondly, enterprises need to encourage customers′ value co-creation behavior. Technological micro and small enterprises should provide customers with platforms and opportunities to participate in the enterprise′s value creation, incentivize customers′ participation in their production activities through word-of-mouth effect and marketing strategies, and actively solicit new ideas and creativity from customers. Finally, enterprises should actively build an enterprise climate that encourages innovation. Enterprises need to continuously explore and actively cultivate a favorable innovation climate, establishing management and incentive systems that can stimulate the innovation climate so that customers can actively share their knowledge and resources with the enterprise and achieve the purpose of value co-creation. In addition, enterprises should build customers′ strong support and tolerance for innovation, which can stimulate their trust and recognition, and form a sense of belonging and mission, which are more likely to generate value co-creation behavior than other efforts.

Key words: customer engagement, innovation performance, value co-creation behavior, innovation climate