Abstract:      Knowledge fusion is critical for increasing firm productivity and its innovation competitiveness, and an innovation ecosystem is a critical organizational environment for achieving knowledge fusion. The value propositions in the innovation ecosystem with different value goals are heterogeneous, resulting in significant differences in knowledge fusion paths. Regrettably, however, previous literature has rarely investigated it, leading to a misunderstanding of knowledge fusion, which leads to idle knowledge, invalid fusion and reverse fusion of knowledge. As a result, to reverse the current low level of knowledge fusion in an innovation ecosystem, it is critical to investigate the knowledge fusion paths in an innovation ecosystem.
    Based on the Organizational Symbiosis Theory and the perspective of value proposition heterogeneity, this paper followed the "subject-network-environment" logic and investigates the configuration of knowledge fusion in the technology-dominant and the market-dominant innovation ecosystems. This study employed the survey data from firm-level innovation ecosystems in China, including information technology, intelligent manufacturing, electronic communication, college and technology incubator. A sample of 272 valid questionnaires was drawn from the above organizations, all of which have experiences with knowledge fusion within two types of innovation ecosystems. The configuration relationship was tested using the fuzzy set qualitative analysis (fsQCA) method. 
    The results show that the technology-dominant innovation ecosystem has two knowledge fusion configurations and the market-dominant innovation ecosystem has three knowledge fusion configurations. There are general and special configurations, and further comparative analysis revealed that the two types of innovation ecosystems′ core conditions for high-level knowledge fusion differ, as do the matching and substitution relationships between the conditions. The "focal firm-led" and "actors-network-environment linkage" characteristics of the technology-dominant innovation ecosystem can be summarized. The two paths have different conditions, but they both emphasize high-level knowledge integration. The integration is primarily dependent on the focal firms′ breakthrough improvement in their independent innovation capability. The driving paths of market-led innovation ecosystem driving high-level knowledge fusion can be summarized as "environment-driven", "complementary depending on actors′ ability", and "main actors′ ability-network-environment linkage-type". Although the conditions of the three paths are different, they all emphasize that a high degree of knowledge fusion is primarily driven by complementary actors, innovation networks and exogenous driving forces from the external environment. The general configurations of knowledge fusion of technology-dominant and market-dominant innovation ecosystem are "subject-network-environment linkage-type", but the core conditions differ from the marginal conditions, indicating that knowledge fusion is affected by cross-level multi-factors, but the importance of antecedents to produce a high degree of knowledge fusion differs due to the different value orientations of the innovation ecosystem.
    The findings enrich and strengthen related research on the antecedents and conditions of knowledge fusion in the innovation ecosystem from the perspective of heterogeneity value goals, allowing enterprises and governments to develop targeted innovation strategies, deepen cross-domain knowledge integration, and achieve high-quality innovation development. This paper reminds managers that when some of the conditions are missing or immature, they can compensate and balance by strengthening other conditions as much as possible, thus they must pay close attention to scientific matching and adjustment.

Key words:  innovation ecosystem, value proposition heterogeneity, knowledge fusion, fsQCA method