Abstract: Innovation vouchers can provide funding to small and medium size enterprises (SME) to work with an expert knowledge provider from public sector research bodies and professional service providers. i.e., universities, public research centers. Innovation vouchers can also be used to pay for the usage of public R&D resources in these bodies, i.e., expensive equipment. As an important innovation policy, innovation vouchers have been applied in many countries and several provinces in China, such as Shanghai, Jiangsu, Tianjin, etc. A market coordination mechanism was adopted for the application of innovation vouchers. Universality for all SMEs is an important characteristic of innovation vouchers. Innovation vouchers are issued by government, but few limitations were set on the application. In practice, many SMEs applied for innovation vouchers. However, not too many businesses really used it. Some enterprises were selected by markets to apply the innovation vouchers. How these enterprises were selected and what is the threshold for the selection? Are there any suggestions on crossing the thresholds for enterprises who want to use it and for the governments who want to improve the application efficient of innovation vouchers? This study focused on the phenomenon and examined the reason for the selection mechanism during the application of innovation vouchers. In research methods, a survey was conducted in Shanghai in 2017 where innovation vouchers have been issued since 2015. There are three types of enterprises surveyed, i.e.,(1) 44 SME with the experiences of applying innovation vouchers, (2) 230 SME without the experiences, and (3) 409 large and medium enterprises with strong R&D capabilities. These enterprises have a wide coverage in sale revenue and employee quantity. The innovation foundation and investment and innovation performance in the enterprises were surveyed. The innovation foundation and investment were surveyed through 6 variables, i.e., (1) sales revenue, (2) sales profit, (3) R&D funding investment, (4) R&D human resource investment, (5) employee quantity, and (6) government support in R&D. The innovation performance were surveyed through two variables, i.e., (1) R&D project quantities, and (2) applied patent quantities. The innovation foundation and investment variables were analyzed with factor analysis methods. Regression analysis models were built between the innovation foundation and investment and innovation performance for three types of enterprises. The results of colinearity test, Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) test, and Bartlett′s ball test were satisfied. The factor analysis results show that three common factors can be shared within these 6 innovation foundation and investment variables. These common variables were explained as (1) R&D investment on funding and human resource, (2) profitability, and (3) cooperation with government. The regression analysis results on the SMEs using innovation vouchers in 2015 show that: (1) there are significant relationships between the innovation foundation and investment and the R&D project quantities; (2) there are significant relationships between the innovation foundation and investment and the applied patent quantities; (3) all of three common factors of innovation foundation and investment have significant contribution to the regression relationships. The regression analysis results on the SMEs without using innovation vouchers in 2015 show that: (1) there are significant relationships between the innovation foundation and investment and the R&D project quantities; in addition, the profitability variable and the cooperation with government variable can make significant contribution; the R&D funding investment and R&D human resource investment cannot make significant contribution; and (2) there are not significant relationships between the innovation foundation and investment and the applied patent quantities. The regression analysis results on the large and medium enterprises with strong R&D capabilities show that: (1) there are significant relationships between the innovation foundation and investment and the R&D project quantities; (2) there are significant relationships between the innovation foundation and investment and the applied patent quantities; and (3) three common factors on innovation foundation and investment have significant contribution to the regression relationships. The data analysis results suggested that: (1) there is significant difference between two types of SMEs in the relationships between the innovation foundation and investment and the innovation performance; (2) the SME with the experience of innovative vouchers may share common characteristics as the large and middle size enterprises on the relationships between the innovation foundation and investment and the innovation performance. There is no limitation on the application of innovation vouchers; however the application results show that the enterprises applying innovation vouchers are similar as the enterprises with strong R&D capabilities. The data results show that there is a threshold in applying innovation vouchers. The threshold is located the relationships between the innovation foundation and investment and the innovation performance. Innovation vouchers are typical tools for governments to support innovations in enterprises with the application of market coordination mechanism. The threshold may not be supposed during the original purposes of innovation vouchers which are to encourage all SMEs through market coordination mechanism. Two reasons may be given on the appearance of the threshold. One reason is that the enterprises using innovation vouchers are required to invest their own funding on the innovation activities which should be not less than the funding of innovation vouchers. The other reason is that the application area of innovation vouchers may be limited. Currently, most innovation vouchers in our survey have been used for paying for the usage of equipment, and not too many choices on technology service are available for the application of innovation vouchers.Two suggestions may be given on how to cross the threshold in the application of innovation vouchers. For the enterprises who want to use the innovation vouchers, it is necessary to build the strong relationships between the innovation foundation and investment and the innovation performance. The relationships may depend on the management capabilities of the enterprises. The management capabilities can not only improve the applying efficient of R&D investment, but also improve the expectation of R&D investment. The higher expectation can generate the higher application of innovation vouchers. For the governments who are issuing innovation vouchers, it is necessary to provide more service selections on the application of innovation vouchers and to make optimization on the ratio of funding paid by enterprises to the funding paid by innovation vouchers. For example, the innovation vouchers can be used to pay for patent application fee and assurance fee in R&D in some other provinces. These applications are very helpful for SMEs. In addition, the solution on improving innovation management capabilities of SMEs can be suggested to be used with innovation vouchers, for example, the management train fee, the qualification fee on management systems, i.e., ISO9000 qualification, six sigma management specialist qualification.

Key words:  innovation voucher, market coordination, selection mechanism, empirical study