Abstract:    Strengthening the principal role of enterprises in S&T innovation has become an important issue in the field of national innovation system. Existing studies focus on defining the connotation and evaluating the current status of enterprises′ principal role in technology innovation, but lack theoretical research on the strengthening mechanism of their principal role in S&T innovation. On the basis of clarifying the difference between enterprises′ principal role in technology innovation and enterprises′ principal role in science, technology and innovation, this paper explored the strengthening mechanism and boundary conditions of enterprises′ principal role in S&T innovation from the perspective of structural power, and selected 183 listed companies that have won the National S&T Progress Award from 2012 to 2020 as samples for an empirical analysis. The study concluded that: Firstly, strengthening the principal role of enterprises in S&T innovation means that enterprises should not only maintain the principal role in technological innovation, achievement transformation, industrialization and other aspects, but also maintain the principal role in basic and cutting-edge scientific research. Secondly, the principal role of enterprises in S&T innovation depends on their structural power, which comes from the hierarchical authority, resource control and network centrality of enterprises. Every single source of structural power can help to strengthen the principal role of enterprises in S&T innovation, and there is a two-by-two complementary effect between these three sources of structural power. Thirdly, there are boundary conditions for strengthening enterprise′ principal role in S&T innovation. The government′s S&T funding support can strengthen the positive influence of enterprise′ network centrality on their principal role in S&T innovation, but it will partially offset the positive influence of enterprises′ hierarchical authority and resource control on their principal role in S&T innovation. This paper will enrich the research on enterprises′ principal role in S&T innovation, and provide directional guidance for government departments to formulate policies related to strengthening the principal role of enterprises in S&T innovation. 

Key words: S&T innovation, principal role of enterprises in innovation, structural power, S&T funding support