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Institutional logic and developmental path of technological innovation of China′s high-speed rail system Yan Aiyan, Tang Fangcheng 2022, 43(2): 1-8.  Abstract ( 343 )      The process of high-speed rail technology innovation is also a process of new technology legalization. The successful high-speed rail technology innovation mode is a typical paradigm to realize the development of key strategic emerging industries in China. It has more important reference significance for other technology catching-up fields in China, given the current international situation. From the perspective of historical analysis, based on the introduction of the concept of technological legitimacy, this paper comprehensively applies the theory of technological innovation and new institutionalism to analyze China′s science and technology policies related to the development of high-speed rail.     By sorting out more than 7000 science and technology innovation policies from 1949 to 2015, we analyze the science and technology policies and their evolution process related to the development of high-speed rail in China. Adopting the technology roadmap analysis framework with policy dimension (P-TRM), we explore the influencing mechanism of science and technology policies in different development stages on the core technology innovation, products and market of high-speed rail. The whole period can be divided into four phases: national defense construction phase, economic construction and industrial introduction phase, the phase of implementing the strategy of prospering the nation with science and education, and the phase to apply innovative country strategy. Based on the study of these technology polices and their evolution process, combined with the analysis of the technology path from importation to independent research and development of high-speed rail technology in China, we explore the institutional logic and evolving path of the state-led high-speed rail technology innovation from the perspective of technology legitimacy.    The main conclusions include: the authority and centralized strong leadership funded by the correct leadership of the Communist Party of China and government for many years help to accelerate the legalization process of high-speed rail technology; the state promotes system reform and policy update timely according to the changes of political, economic and social environment, and it is conducive to promoting high-speed rail technology innovation; it is an important lesson to insist independent innovation, to continuously accumulate technology development and strengthen technical capacity, to import necessary technology timely, to rapidly promote the technological innovation of high-speed rail by digesting and absorbing those imported technologies into our own technical system. The achievements of China′s high-speed rail are inseparable from China′s huge market and strong industrial system, nor from the strong national capacity and state-led institutional reform and technological progress.     It is suggested that we should give full play to the strategic deployment role led by the state, make full use of China′s institutional advantages. We should pay great attention to the importance of technological legitimacy. Following the guiding relationship between institutional innovation and the development of technological innovation, considering the normative legitimacy, cognitive legitimacy and regulatory legitimacy, we should scientifically plan the stages of institutional embeddedness, institutional design and institutional support, so as to smooth and accelerate the process of the legalization of industrial technology and improve the ability of technological innovation. We should fully pool the dual forces of state will and market forces, promote integrated innovation comprehensively, rationally allocate resources, encourage resource sharing, accelerate the development of key strategic emerging industries, and establish a national innovation system in the field of strategic technology. References | Related Articles | Metrics

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Evolution of open innovation paths from the perspective of innovation situation Yang Lei, Liu Haibing 2022, 43(2): 9-17.  Abstract ( 229 )      Aiming at the deficiencies in theoretical research and combining with the specific practice of enterprises, this paper discusses what needs to be studied at first. Based on the description of situational factors and open innovation types, this paper tries to extract the basic experience of open innovation implementation from commonness and difference through the comparison of P&G, Huawei and Haier, and discusses the following three problems in detail: (1) How to categorize and depict open innovation types intuitively? (2) Is there a general law in the evolution of the open innovation path of different enterprises? (3) Does each situational element affect the setting of open innovation model? What is the mechanism of the impact?      The method of case study is especially suitable for dynamic research, and can deeply analyze the internal mechanism of problem development. This paper studies the evolution law of open innovation in different open innovation situations, that is, to solve the problems of "when" and "how", so it is more suitable to use the method of case study to extract undiscovered conclusions from phenomena. And multi-case study is more suitable for the construction of dynamic process model, so this paper chooses the method of multi-case study.    Following the design of multi-case study, the data analysis mainly consists of three key steps: firstly, the case enterprise data are preliminarily combed, narrative simplification and classification with the logic of "innovation situation" and "open innovation type"; secondly, the evolution process of open innovation type of each enterprise is combed with specific logic, and the results are discussed by replication and difference logic; finally, based on the principle of single variable, this paper discusses the influence of each element in the innovation situation on the open innovation type, analyzes the internal matching logic between the situation and the type.    Based on the guidance of relevant data, the indicators mentioned in the existing literature are reorganized and classified by repeated comparisons and iterations between the case data, the construction relationship and the existing theories. Finally, this paper describes the specific characteristics of each stage of open innovation in two dimensions: open model and the nature of partners. The cooperation model is divided into four levels: the degree of cooperation close, the form of cooperation, the open node and the transaction logic, and the nature of partners are described from two aspects: their spatial distribution characteristics and the types. According to the stage characteristics of enterprise opening, marked by the transformation of the close degree of cooperation in open innovation, the stage of open innovation is divided into primary open stage, mature open stage and leading opening stage.    In view of the research gap in the theory, taking the practice of Haier, P&G and Huawei as examples, this paper compares and iterates the case material orientation with the existing theoretical knowledge repeatedly, and tries to obtain the general law of the evolution of open innovation path and the internal mechanism of the effect of situation on open innovation, so as to provide some theoretical reference for the application of enterprises. The main results are as follows: (1) the definition of open innovation type can be described in two dimensions: open model and partner nature, among which, open model can be divided into four aspects: the degree of cooperation close, the form of cooperation, the open node and the transaction logic; and the nature of partner is mainly reflected in the spatial distribution and type of partner. These two dimensions depict the openness of the enterprise intuitively and quantitatively; (2) based on the degree of cooperation close, most of the open innovation of different enterprises goes through the "primary open stage-mature open stage-leading open stage". At the same time, the degree of cooperation close in these three stages is contractual, teamwork and strategic cooperation; (3) the internal situation of enterprises will affect the evolution of open innovation model. Among them, innovation strategy will affect three dimensions: the degree of cooperation close, the form of cooperation and the type of partnership; the type of partners changes with the change of organizational structure; the change of enterprise scale may affect the choice of cooperation form and spatial distribution of partners; (4) the external situation of enterprises is also an important influencing factor in the evolution of open innovation model. Among them, industry characteristics will affect choice of partner type, degree of close cooperation, spatial distribution and cooperation form of the organization; the form of cooperation, spatial distribution and partner type change with the change of industry situation; innovation environment will have an impact on partner type and transaction logic.    The enlightenment of this conclusion to the practice of enterprises is that: (1) Open innovation is a gradual process, in which the open node is an important controllink, it should be limited to the level of non-core technology no matter in what stage of opening. (2) Both the perspective of dynamic capability and the perspective of resource-based view emphasize that open innovation can bring some advantages to enterprises, but the premise is that the open model must be set reasonably according to the situation. The empirical accumulation brought by open innovation constitutes the resource basis of the enterprise, and it is also the key to the formation of the core competence of the enterprise. (3) In open innovation, the influence of external situational factors (such as industry attributes, innovation environment, etc.) on the choice of open model of enterprises is greater than that of internal situations. Among them, the industry attribute and the industry potential have a great influence on the open model. (4) In the open innovation, the successful setting of the resource transit platform can reduce the search cost and improve the innovation efficiency. However, the key is to improve the resource attractiveness and resource flow rate of the resource transit platform. (5) Open innovation is an innovation mechanism to ensure that enterprises can obtain Schumpeter innovation rent and Ricardo scarce rent at the same time, but enterprises must pay attention to basic R&D in order to avoid the potential dependence brought by open innovation and ensure their own R&D strength. The above conclusions provide a certain theoretical reference for the setting of open model of enterprises. Related Articles | Metrics

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Establishment and evaluation of entrepreneurial policy effect model for new ventures:A study from the perspective of supply-demand matching and perceived value Zhou Yixiang 2022, 43(2): 18-26.  Abstract ( 167 )       Under the background of "mass entrepreneurship and innovation", China′s central and local governments have formulated a variety of entrepreneurship policies. But policy making is usually a top-down process, and "supply-demand" mismatches often occur. On the one hand, governments at all levels have invested a lot of money and energy in the formulation and implementation of entrepreneurship policies. On the other hand, due to the lack of assessment measures and institutions, little is known about whether these policies really work. What′s more, some entrepreneurs report that entrepreneurship policies are "inaudible, invisible and invisible". Others even know policy, but higher threshold prevents them enjoy it. There is a huge gap between awareness rate and utilization rate. This shows that supply and actual demand of China′s entrepreneurial policy have not been well matched.    The vitality of entrepreneurship policy depends on whether it can be understood, accepted and applied by its target group, rather than the number of items. The policy that is not known or used by entrepreneurs is just a piece of paper. Unfortunately, most of existing literatures focus on rationality evaluation of entrepreneurial policy or its impact on entrepreneurial behavior. Few researchers have paid attention to the mismatch between policy supply and demand. This is obviously not conducive to monitor implementation of entrepreneurship policy, and it is difficult to diagnose and guide formulation of entrepreneurship policy.    Based on the above reality, this paper constructs evaluation model of entrepreneurial policy and puts forward research hypotheses. Then, 236 new enterprises in Hangzhou, Ningbo and Taizhou of Zhejiang Province are selected for verification in this paper. The results showed that: (1) "supply-demand" matching and perceived value are both the direct cause of "cognitive-utilization" gap. More importantly, they are also important factors influencing implementation effect of China′s entrepreneurship policy at the present stage. (2) Besides directly adjusting the relationship between entrepreneurial policy and entrepreneurial performance, matching degree of supply and demand also indirectly regulates entrepreneurial policy through perceived value. In general, the higher matching degree, the better entrepreneurial performance; the higher perceived value, the better performance. (3) For many new enterprises, promoting effect of entrepreneurship policy is more reflected in their growth performance, not survival performance.    These findings point out the way to improve the effectiveness of China′s entrepreneurship policies. First, we should pay attention to the situational factors that affect implementation effect of entrepreneurship policies, and formulate supportive policies that meet the needs of new enterprises based on their own characteristics. The second is to improve matching degree of entrepreneurship policy. Any supply deviating from demand will lead to failure of matching. Therefore, it is necessary to consider matching problem at the beginning of formulating entrepreneurial policies. The third is to strengthen entrepreneurs′ perceived value. Entrepreneurs are neither "bystanders" nor "outsiders" in the formulation of entrepreneurship policies. They are stakeholders and executive subject of entrepreneurship policy. Thus, they should fully participate in the formulation of entrepreneurship policy. The government needs to build a benign interactive feedback mechanism to increase perceived value of entrepreneurs.     Compared with similar researches at home and abroad, innovations of this paper are reflected in three aspects. Firstly, aiming at the phenomenon that entrepreneurs know specific entrepreneurial policies, but seldom or never make use of them, this paper introduces matching theory and perceived value theory to explore internal mechanism of this phenomenon and discuss its influence on entrepreneurial performance. Second, when evaluating effect of entrepreneurship policies, we combine "policy demand with policy supply" to make up for shortcomings of unilateral evaluation of entrepreneurship policies. Thirdly, this paper constructs evaluation model of entrepreneurial policy of new enterprises in theory, which makes up research gap of existing literature. At the same time, by putting forward corresponding policy suggestions, this paper also provides specific foothold for government to improve implementation effect of entrepreneurship policy in practice. Related Articles | Metrics

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Technological innovation and environmental cost of enterprises——"Environmental Orientation" or "Efficiency First"? Ya Kun, Luo Fukai, Wang Jing 2022, 43(2): 27-35.  Abstract ( 287 )      Due to the unreasonable division of global value chains, irrational economic structure and imperfect legal system, China′s rapid economic growth is accompanied by increasingly prominent environmental pollution and increasingly severe ecological hazards. How to improve the ecological environment, explore the path of environmental pollution control, has gradually become an important issue for the government to solve. In this context, the government actively advocates to establish a green innovation system, and take innovation as the guide to drive green development. However, enterprises are the important carrier of technological innovation and the backbone of scientific and technological progress and economic development. Although China′s scientific and technological innovation level and innovation investment have been significantly improved in recent years, and China has gradually entered the forefront of the world, research shows that enterprises are still the main producers and emitters of environmental pollutants. Therefore, whether the technological innovation of enterprises presents the characteristics of environmental friendliness, and whether the development of enterprise innovation activities contributes to the improvement of enterprise environmental benefits and environmental governance has become a new topic of academic concern.     In view of the gradual internalization of environmental cost, environmental cost has become the most direct means to measure the environmental protection level and pollution control level of enterprises. Based on the sample of Chinese public listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen from 2009 to 2016, this paper discusses the impact of technological innovation on the environmental cost of enterprises, examines the environmental orientation of technological innovation, and analyzes the mechanism and influence mechanism of technological innovation on the environmental cost of enterprises. Empirical results show that technological innovation significantly promotes the reduction of enterprise environmental costs, and compared with voluntary environmental costs, technological innovation is more conducive to the reduction of mandatory environmental costs. After controlling the impact of endogenous problems, this conclusion is still stable. Further research shows that the impact of technological innovation on enterprise environmental cost is heterogeneous, and the negative relationship between the technological innovation and enterprise environmental cost is more significant in state-owned enterprises, high-polluting enterprises, enterprises with higher degree of environmental regulation and lower degree of financing constraint.In addition, the conclusion of this paper is still robust after using the double difference method, instrumental variable method and other robustness tests to alleviate the endogenous problem. This study verifies the environmental orientation of technological innovation and provides empirical evidence and reference for enterprises to choose investment direction, fulfill social responsibility and government environmental governance.     According to the previous analysis, we put forward relevant countermeasures and suggestions:     Firstly, we should enhance the consciousness of enterprise innovation and environmental protection, encourage enterprises to make environmentally friendly green innovations, and promote the transformation of enterprises environmental behavior from negative end management to positive front prevention. It should give full play to the "gain" effect of green innovation, and effectively promote enterprises to improve unit energy efficiency, reduce energy consumption, reduce the emission of environmental pollutants, and thus promote the reduction of enterprise environmental costs and even production costs.     Secondly, it should strengthen the environmental regulation intensity of the government and the public′s, and the appropriate environmental regulation is conducive to promote the enterprise to carry out innovation. With the increase of government environmental regulation intensity, the cost of enterprises′ compliance with policies and regulations increases. And when the marginal costs brought by the enterprise′s production and operation activities exceed its marginal benefits, it will prompt the enterprise to reduce the environmental costs through technological innovation. At the same time, with the increasing attention of the public and media to environmental problems, fulfilling social responsibility actively has become the key to the long-term development of enterprises. Therefore, informal environmental regulation will also help enterprises to carry out innovation activities, thus reducing the costs of enterprises.     Thirdly, it is necessary to strengthen environmental supervision to "take the right medicine to the case", take full account of the heterogeneity of enterprise pollution degree and give play to the flexibility of regulatory policies. We will strengthen mandatory environmental supervision over heavy polluting enterprises, promote the transformation and upgrading of heavy polluting enterprises, and encourage non-heavy polluting enterprises to update their emission reduction technologies. At the same time, the government and financial institutions need to strengthen the environmental investment policy. Through government subsidies for environmental protection and green financial business of financial institutions, we can alleviate the capital pressure and financing constraints faced by enterprises in carrying out innovation and environmental protection activities.     The contribution of this paper is embodied in the following aspects. Firstly, it enriches the economic consequence test of technological innovation. This paper, guided by the impact of innovation on enterprise environmental costs, discusses the environmental and economic consequences of enterprise innovation. It further deepens the understanding of enterprise innovation, and provides decision-making reference for enterprises to fulfill environmental protection responsibilities and governments to carry out environmental governance. Secondly, it broadens the quantitative thinking of environmental cost and analyzes the action path of enterprise innovation on environmental costs. Based on the motivation of enterprise′s environmental behavior, we subdivide enterprise environmental costs into mandatory environmental costs and voluntary environmental costs, and further confirm that enterprise innovation mainly promotes the reduction of the total environment costs by influencing mandatory environmental cost. To some extent, it verifies the "environmental orientation" of enterprise innovation, and makes the path of enterprise innovation affecting environmental costs clearer. Thirdly, it further explored the possible ways for enterprises to improve environmental performance and environmental protection level. From the perspective of micro enterprises, we verify the positive impact of technological innovation on reducing environmental costs by improving resource utilization and reducing pollution emission level. Then it provides micro enterprise evidence for the implementation of innovation-led green development strategy and the choice of investment direction. Lastly, it expands the research depth of the impact of enterprise innovation on environmental cost, and provides empirical evidence of the heterogeneous impact of enterprise innovation on environmental costs. And it provides empirical enlightenment for the development of environmental behavior of enterprises with different pollution degree and environmental regulation intensity. Related Articles | Metrics

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Emission reduction characteristics of export technology evolution: Catch-up, distortion and resource utilization efficiency Yang Ye, Xie Jianguo 2022, 43(2): 36-45.  Abstract ( 124 )        In the past few decades, China has rapidly improved its export technology complexity by supporting the development of its own comparative advantage industries, but this development is accompanied by government market intervention and low resource utilization efficiency. The catch-up of export technology is a technological evolution that deviates from the traditional "comparative advantage" of a country and the overall "factor endowment" status of the country. If this "deviation" lacks appropriate human capital, market-based price mechanism, etc., it will lead to negative effects such as reduced efficiency in factor allocation, production distortions, and reduced energy efficiency. At the same time, this catch-up export development model will inevitably lead to the rapid accumulation of capital elements and economic growth and the widening of export products. This is also the fundamental driving force for many developing countries to implement export technology catch-up strategies. Some scholars also believe that such catch-up behaviors in developing countries such as China are a kind of "image surpassing", which is driven by a rich labor force and low value-added global value chain, and it is attracted by low-end processing trade and foreign direct investment. Qian Xuefeng using the micro-data at the level of Chinese enterprises pointed out that countries that implement export technology catch-ups often use the capital accumulated by their original comparative advantages to develop technological innovation and resource utilization efficiency beyond the comparative advantage. In the higher emerging industries, this behavior will enhance the domestic production efficiency of the lower technical content and the international market competitiveness of enterprises while improving the ability of producing high-quality new products in the country. In the past three decades, the phenomenon of the upgrading of export technology has been widespread in developing countries. This technological upgrading has brought about the diversification and complexity of new, higher quality products and export products for developing countries. The complication of export technology means increased exports of capital-intensive industries and more competitive exporters, and recent literature suggests that this change provides a sustainable advantage for economic growth in developing countries. In developing countries, there is a general deviation from the comparative advantage of export technology.      Will this deviation be beneficial to economic development in the long run or will it be a hindrance? Recent scholars have had a heated discussion on this issue. The government has played a key leading role in the formation of a catch-up external development model in a country. Should the country implement a catch-up development strategy? In terms of theoretical research, Lin Yifu emphasized in the discussion of new structural economics that a country′s development should conform to its comparative advantage, the country′s industrial policy should be in line with comparative advantage, and the strategy of deviating from comparative advantage will certainly hinder economic development.    To truly play the comparative advantage of the country, there must be a market and a government, and both are indispensable. If the industry supported by the government does not meet the comparative advantage determined by a country′s own factor endowment, then the development of the industry naturally has no cost competitive advantage, and there is no permanent viability in the open competitive market. When the country′s comparative advantage changes, the government should play the role of "causing the situation". Because technological innovation and upgrading, industrial structure optimization cannot be formed naturally by customer service market defects, the government must provide a sound institutional environment and industrial upgrading and technological innovation.   Contrary to Lin Yifu, Stiglitz points out the importance of learning in the discussion of a new engine of learning society and growth. He believes that the traditional theory of comparative advantage is concerned with the change in the ratio between capital and labor. It does not consider the key role of learning to acquire knowledge in economic growth. The latecomer countries should break through the trade benefits brought about by traditional comparative advantages. If distribution is unfair, it must rely on new comparative advantages such as knowledge, human capital and institutions to cultivate its own learning ability and pursue dynamic and long-term comparative advantages.    Taking government intervention as the entry point, we use the STIRPAT model combined with the GMM-System estimation method. The study found that when the market distortions are excluded, the "adaptation" of export technology deviates from the comparative advantage, which helps to improve the efficiency of resource utilization and thus the intensity of carbon emissions. When considering market distortions, the emission reduction effect of export technology catches up changes. Specifically, market distortions make the export technology′s lower catch-up is not conducive to the reduction of economic development level and the reduction of resource-rich areas. Only when this catch-up deviates from the comparative advantage over a large distance will reverse the negative impact. However, it has not been realized at present; market distortions have inhibited the positive effects of resource- intensive and labor-intensive industries′ export technologies that have a high level of economic development and resource-poor regions on resource utilization efficiency.     Further analysis of the export of high-tech industries shows that market distortions make the level of economic development low and the low-level export technology of natural resource-rich regions catch up with the characteristics of resource-biased evolution, and "extrude" capital and knowledge-biased high-tech industries. Export share reduces resource utilization efficiency. From the perspective of long-term interests, in order to promote the development of knowledge-intensive high-tech industries with high resource utilization efficiency, while the economic development is at a lower stage to implement the export technology catch-up strategy, the government should give the market certain guidance and adjustment, and correct the market defects. When the economic development enters a higher stage, the government should reduce market intervention and adopt a "moderate catch-up" strategy to improve resource utilization efficiency. References | Related Articles | Metrics

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The research on internal governance factors and effects of the digital platform ecosystem based on configuration analysis Dai Yong, Liu Yingjie 2022, 43(2): 46-54.  Abstract ( 218 )       The wave of digitization has promoted corporate organizational changes and business model innovation. Platform-based companies have emerged as the most typical organizational form, and have achieved ecological growth through multilateral network effects. While the ecosystem dominated by platform core companies is developing rapidly, as the types of ecosystem members and their derived businesses are becoming more and more complex and diverse, how to effectively govern the platform ecosystem has become the focus of common concern for scholars and the industry. This study adopts a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, through in-depth case studies and semi-structured questionnaire interviews with multiple managers of 12 platform organizations in different fields, and combined with existing literature to extract the impact of platform ecosystem governance antecedent variables; in view of the complexity and dynamics of its influencing path, this paper further uses fsQCA qualitative analysis technology to carry out conditional configuration analysis of these influencing factors.      The research found that: (1) This research summarizes five major antecedent variables that affect the internal governance of the platform ecosystem: technology investment, openness, control mechanism, and platform leadership, the degree of competition and cooperation among ecological members. This paper further uses the fuzzy set qualitative comparative research method to carry out configuration analysis on these condition variables, and finds that different combinations of multiple conditions can achieve different governance effects. (2) A single variable is weak in explaining the internal governance effects of the platform. The four configurations of transaction-driven, service-driven, content-driven, and innovation-driven platform ecosystem governance modes formed by coupling of different conditions can all achieve efficient governance. Different types of platform ecosystems have different governance priorities. Platform leaders should make prudent decisions based on their own influence, resources and industry background, choose matching governance models and continue to optimize them, so as to achieve efficient governance. (3) The governance of the non-efficient platform ecosystem includes two configurations: the overall lagging type and the management disorder type. In the absence of the two core conditions of technology investment and control mechanisms, the effectiveness of platform internal governance has been significantly inhibited, which reflects the importance of increasing technology investment and establishing and improving formal and informal control mechanisms for the ecological governance of such platforms.      This study incorporates multiple conditions into the same research framework, makes up for the shortcomings of traditional methods, provides theoretical support for subsequent large-scale empirical studies of multiple factors affecting platform governance, and provides a more diversified understanding of the dynamics and complexity of platform governance for reference. At the same time, this article also provides effective management enlightenment.     First of all, in the initial stage of platform development, platform core companies can first build infrastructure through technology investment, attract all members to actively participate in the formation of network effects, and continue to invest in technology research and development in the subsequent development process for big data risk control and platform members continuous upgrading of the governance system such as screening.     Secondly, in the process of rapid expansion, the platform must pay particular attention to internal ecological governance, and while obtaining economic benefits, it must also shoulder corporate social responsibilities. From the business ecosystem to the social responsibility ecosystem, from the self-development of the platform to the co-existence and win-win situation of members in the system, core enterprises must not only empower, but also responsibilities.     Finally, the growth of the platform ecology has undergone a process of creation, expansion, and multiple cycles. The quality of its growth depends on the platform′s ecological governance capabilities. In addition to building platforms on their own, some small and medium-sized enterprises can also choose to join the platform, participate in the benign interaction in the existing ecosystem, and create greater value for the platform while obtaining platform resources to achieve self-growth. Related Articles | Metrics

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The mechanism of "liquification" of emerging technology innovative network and its empirical analysis Cao Xing, Zhu Jingying, Yang Chunbaixue 2022, 43(2): 55-64.  Abstract ( 148 )       With the explosive growth of emerging technologies, the emerging industries have proliferated, which in turn accelerate technology iterations. An important characteristic of innovation in emerging technological fields is that it does not occur in isolation, innovations are generated and implemented by networks of interacting organizations and individuals. Thus, understanding what is the most efficient kind of innovative network becomes crucial for pursuing innovation performance and economic growth.      Within the innovative network, knowledge spillovers across technologies, frequent technology diffusion and convergence across different sectors occur. Thus, the innovative network gradually presents the characteristics of fuzzy network boundaries, flexible network connection, heterogeneity of innovators and easy flow of knowledge. Meanwhile, the network structure evolves to be between the ruled and the irregular status, showing a trend of de-core. The extant literature has not mentioned this kind of network structure. To address this gap, this paper proposes a "Liquification" innovative network, whose structure is between multi-core network and complete graphs. There is a high-density connection inside the "Liquification" network, making it easier to develop adjacent possibilities and spread new ideas or innovations. At the same time, it saves the newly generated useful linkages for a long time. Once the "Liquification" network is formed, innovation and invention will continue to emerge. This paper aims to study the formation mechanism of "Liquification" network，and use empirical test to further examine its characteristics.     In mechanism analysis of "Liquification" network, we found that the technology diffusion and absorption can speed up technological development and improve its limit, delaying the coming of technology recession, thus extending the life cycle of the original technology. The frequent knowledge diffusion and integration among various innovative subjects shortens the distance between different technology networks. Boundaries between technological networks become blurred, and the diffusion of technology no longer depends on specific paths. The orderly diffusion process tends to be disorderly. The collision of information between different innovators changes the way of linking. Therefore, the innovative network presents feature such as knowledge heterogeneity, flexible links, strong network connectivity, strong knowledge mobility, widespread technology integration, and fuzzy network boundaries. The emerging technology innovative network present to be "liquified".     In order to further verify the characteristics of the "Liquification" network in the mechanism analysis, this paper collects the patent data of the autonomous vehicle field in the Derwent Innovation Index and conducts an empirical analysis. Autonomous vehicle is a smart car that is driven by computer system, considered to be a disruptive innovation according to the emerging technology maturity curve released by Gartner. Observing networks in different time slices, we found that the technical domain increased sharply, providing potential opportunities for technological convergence. And the whole network connectivity was enhanced with a decreasing betweenness centrality and an increasing closeness centrality, indicating that integration between different technical fields is becoming more and more common and is no longer limited to some certain specific key technologies.     The results show that the formation of "Liquification" network can improve technology limits, accelerate technology development and extend the technology life cycle. The characteristics of "Liquification" network include knowledge heterogeneity, flexible links, strong network connectivity, strong knowledge mobility, widespread technology integration, and blurred network boundaries. It is also found that the network shows a de-core trend as the "Liquification" network formed.  References | Related Articles | Metrics

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Implementation approaches of reverse innovation for latecomers from the perspective of innovation chain Li Wei, Huang Xia 2022, 43(2): 65-71.  Abstract ( 209 )      Reverse innovation provides the latecomers with a new strategy to conduct global innovation and to enter the developed markets. The concept of reverse innovation is originated from developed countries. It is a new mode of technology innovation and internationalization strategy. Different from the traditional innovation where the innovation is started and finished by advanced companies in developed countries and flows to developing countries, the reverse innovation is initiated and performed in emerging countries by western advanced multinational companies and then traces back to developed countries. It is of great benefits for advanced companies to save R&D expenditures and lower the total innovation cost for a complete innovation process. Although the concept is proposed and performed by western companies at the beginning, more and more researchers believe that the developing companies in emerging countries should be the dominant players of reverse innovation conception. The strategic value such as technology innovation and internationalization is much more tremendous for latecomers in emerging countries.      A qualitative research method is adopted in this research, in which a theoretical reflection on existed innovation chain theory and reverse innovation theory is conducted so as to abstract new perspectives. The main purpose is to find out the basic elements of latecomer′s reverse innovation chain, to define the concept and definition of latecomer reverse innovation chain, to distinguish the categories of latecomer reverse innovation chain, and to demonstrate the typical paths through which latecomer reverse innovation could be realized. The potential contributions of this study lie in the discrimination of critical elements of latecomer′s reverse innovation which is very helpful to detect the nature of reverse innovation initiated in emerging countries, as well as in the induction of reverse innovation chain categories and the demonstrated innovation paths for latecomers.    The main findings and contributions of this research are as follows. First, it is revealed that key elements of latecomer reverse innovation chain include concept acquirement, technology development, and market entry sequence. The market entry sequence refers to the order of entry to primary market and secondary market. It is argued that all the three elements are of critical distinctions in both definition and selection mechanisms, comparing with reverse innovation initiated by advanced multinational companies locating in developed countries. Three most significant distinctions are found in this research. In particular, for latecomers embedded in developing countries, the origin of new conceptions of reverse innovation could be acquired both in developing market and in developed market which is much broader than western companies, the main resource of technology development should be stored and exploited in latecomer′s mother country but not in western countries, and the sequence of market entry between developing country and targeted developed country is of variety which is relevant with latecomer′s resource characteristics. The above first finding demonstrates that the theory construction of latecomer′s reverse innovation should be embedded in local context, but not simply draw the present conceptions proposed by western research.     Second, based on the combination of innovation elements, reverse innovation chain is defined. According to the different combinations of latecomer reverse innovation elements the concept origins, the technology development, and the market entry sequence, three categories of latecomer reverse innovation chain are induced, which are named as local market-compounded reverse innovation, oversea market-pulled reverse innovation, and pushing & pulling-compounded reverse innovation, respectively. The market-compounded reverse innovation is highly characterized by local resource, in which the origin of innovation concept, the completion of R&D, and the primary market entry all happens in latecomer′s mother country. It could be seen as a step-by-step internationalization process. On the contrary, the oversea market-pulled reverse innovation is performed generally on oversea information and resources, which requires the firm′s degree of resource internationalization is of high level. It is of higher risk and resource requirement for latecomers to perform this type of reverse innovation. The pushing & pulling-compounded reverse innovation is a mixture of the above two kinds of innovation modes.    Third, six typical paths of latecomer reverse innovation are induced based on the three categories of latecomer reverse innovation chain, which are the paths of DDDA, ADDA, ADAA, ADAD, DDAD, and DDAA, where the letter D represents developing country while the letter A represents advanced country. Taking path DDDA as an example, it means the reverse innovation conception is searched and obtained from developing country, and the technology innovation is executed and completed in developing country based on latecomer′s local resource and technology capability accumulated in mother country, and new product is produced and sold in developing market and then is flown to advanced countries. Path DDDA is the representative of local market-compounded reverse innovation chain, while path of ADAA is the representative of oversea market-pulled reverse innovation chain. The other four paths belong to the pushing & pulling-compounded reverse innovation chain. A dozen of typical reverse innovation cases initiated by Chinese latecomer companies are provided and discussed for each innovation path, from which the run of reverse innovation chain and the main features of reverse innovation are illustrated and compared. These proposed reverse innovation paths provide perspectives and approaches for latecomers in developing countries to explore their target markets located in developed countries. Latecomers should select proper path according to their own resource and capability combinations. An effective linkage or match between firm resource/capability and requirements of each reverse innovation path is a prerequisite to reach success.     Although a theoretical framework of latecomer reverse innovation is proposed in this research from the perspective of innovation chain, which describes the complete innovation process, critical stages, and main implementation routes, there are still several critical issues needed to be solved in this field before the exploration of this new innovation concept goes further, e.g. to explore the determinants of innovation path selection and the impacting patterns from the perspective of resource dependence theory or transaction economics theory, to explore the measurement of latecomer′s reverse innovation performance which may need extensive theoretical analysis and case studies, and to explore the influencing factors of reverse innovation performance and its changing mechanisms which should be founded on empirical studies. 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The research on the relationship between two-way open innovation and new product performance of firms Xie Xuemei, Yu Shenghui 2022, 43(2): 72-80.  Abstract ( 187 )       In the context of open innovation, enterprises are required to build close cooperation relationship with external organizations, thus promoting their technological innovation. The existing literature mainly divides open innovation into two modes: viz., inbound open innovation and outbound open innovation. Based on this classification, some scholars have explored the effects of open innovation on firm performance. However, existing research still needs to be further explored as follows. Firstly, as for the dimension of open innovation, many scholars have focused on the impact of inbound open innovation, yet ignored the role of outbound open innovation. The possible reason is the lack of mature theoretical models for outbound open innovation. Secondly, existing research regarding the internal mechanism between open innovation and enterprise performance mainly focused on the absorptive capacity and market-oriented factors. However, it is pointed out that open innovation would directly or indirectly promote product novelty, and then improve firms′ new product performance. Therefore, this study proposes that product novelty is an important variable affecting the transformation from open innovation into firms′ performance. Thirdly, there are many contingent factors involved in the process of open innovation. On the one hand, the institutional support from government departments can provide knowledge, resources and technology for enterprises. On the other hand, the lack of synergetic mechanism in the process of open innovation will lead to conflicts in many aspects. However, few studies take the two variables as boundary conditions to explore their contingent effect on open innovation. Therefore, this study intends to examine the important roles of institutional support and synergetic mechanism in the process of transforming open innovation into enterprise performance. Based on previous studies, first, this study defines open innovation as two dimensions: inbound open innovation and outbound open innovation, and explores the internal relationship between two open innovation modes and new product performance of enterprises; second, this study examines the mediating effect of product novelty on the relationship between open innovation and new product performance of enterprises; third, this study investigates the moderating effect of institutional support and synergetic mechanism on the relationship above.     We used the survey method to collect data using three ways: field investigation, e-mail and alumni investigation. We took innovative enterprises in Shanghai as the research sample in this survey, which involves nine industries. A total of 500 questionnaires were sent out and 242 valid questionnaires were collected, with an effective recovery rate of 48.4%. Then, the reliability and validity test and correlation analysis were carried out in this study. Besides, the relationship between these variables was analyzed by the methods of multiple regression and bootstrap. What′s more, using the Johnson-Neyman method, the moderated mediating effect was shown by four figures.     This study provided some interesting empirical results. Firstly, the results show that both inbound open innovation and outbound open innovation are positively related to the new product performance of enterprise, and inbound open innovation has a more significant impact than outbound open innovation. This may be due to the fact that enterprises gain more benefits from inbound open innovation than from outbound innovation. More specifically, inbound open innovation has a significant impact on R&D capability, R&D speed, R&D cost and many other aspects of enterprises, while the advantage of outbound open innovation is only bringing financial returns to enterprises. Secondly, the results show that product novelty plays a mediating role in the relationship between open innovation and new product performance of enterprise. Through the inflow and outflow of knowledge, resources and technology, enterprises continuously improve the efficiency of internal innovation and enhance product novelty, thereby ultimately improving enterprises′ new product performance. Thirdly, by constructing a moderated mediating effect model, this study confirms that institutional support and synergetic mechanism have moderating effects on the relationship between inbound and outbound open innovation and product novelty, and positively moderate the indirect relationship between "open innovation—product novelty—new product performance". More specifically, the institutional support from government departments can provide resources for innovative enterprises, which are conducive to the reconstruction of the internal resources system of enterprises, thus improving enterprise innovation. In addition, the synergetic mechanism among partners is conducive to promoting the innovation efficiency of enterprises and ensuring the healthy and sustainable development of cooperation. Therefore, under the moderating effects of institutional support and synergetic mechanism, the indirect relationship of "open innovation—product novelty—new product performance" has been effectively strengthened.     On the whole, as for the theoretical contributions, this study uncovers the "theoretical dark box" between open innovation and firms′ new product performance, expands the boundary conditions of the relationship between open innovation and new product performance of firms, hence enriching the theoretical literature in the field of open innovation. As for the managerial implications, this study provides guidance for enterprises to implement open innovation, and provides important recommendations for government to formulate innovation policy. From the perspective of enterprises, first, enterprises should implement both the inbound and outbound open innovation, and not only acquire knowledge from external organizations but also actively export internal resources rationally. Second, enterprises should pay attention to the establishment and improvement of synergetic mechanism in the process of open innovation. From the perspective of government, first, government needs to further improve the corresponding preferential policies, and further improve the subsidy and incentive policies. Second, government needs to do a better job of service guidance and provides timely industry technology information through the public platform, thus improving the enthusiasm of enterprise innovation. Related Articles | Metrics

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A study of the influencing factors of cross-regional industry-university collaboration innovation performance: From the perspective of interdependent multi-layer network Wang Haihua, Wang Mengyi, Liu Zhaocheng 2022, 43(2): 81-89.  Abstract ( 226 )      With the rapid development of the new scientific and technological revolution, innovation activities are constantly breaking through the boundaries of regions and organizations and becoming a multi-level and complex system engineering. The collaborative innovation process between enterprises and universities is a process in which knowledge elements are continuously combined to realize knowledge creation. In order to obtain knowledge and resources related to innovation, the cooperation scope of enterprises and universities have spread from the same administrative region to different regions. Hence, how to give full play to the advantages of innovation subjects to improve regional innovation ability, resource sharing and value co-creation is of vital importance.     The social network theory holds that the subject is embedded in the interdependent network, and resource sharing and flowing in the network are important sources of continuous innovation. And interdependent multi-layer network is developed in the analysis method of social network. It refers to the network with different levels where different network nodes and different connections at each level, and there are connections between nodes at different levels. As far as we know, cross-regional industry-university collaborative innovation is the cooperative innovation behavior carried out by knowledge reorganization between enterprises and universities that belong to different regions. So, there is a cross-regional industry-university collaborative innovation network that composed of regions, knowledge elements and relations, which is a interdependent multi-layer network.     It is creative to research enterprises, universities and knowledge elements of different regions in the same frame by using the method of interdependent multi-layer network. Meanwhile, it is conducive to integrating high-quality knowledge resources, so as to optimize regional innovation layout reasonably and improve the overall innovation capacity of the region and country. The research on this topic not only enriches the theoretical research in the field of multi-layer social network, but also provides valuable management enlightenment for the sustainable collaborative development of industries, universities and governments in the region.    In this paper, a multi-layer network of cross-regional industry-university collaborative innovation in China is constructed by using the cross-regional patents applicated by the industry and university during 1997-2017 in China. Among them, the regional cooperation network is formed by region (31 provinces in China) as the node, and the cooperative relationship between regions is the connection. And the regional knowledge network is formed by region and knowledge elements (the front four digits of IPC classification number) as nodes, and the combination relation between knowledge elements is the connection. Further, the dependent variable of this paper is the cross-regional industry-university collaborative innovation performance of each province, that is, the total number of invention patents applied by the patent applicant in each province every year. The independent variables are the centrality and structure hole of cooperative network, and the diversity and combination opportunity of knowledge network. At the same time, Gross Domestic Product (GDP), number of "Double First-class" universities (U) and marketization index (MKT) of each province in China are taken as control variables. Based on the above, this paper constructs the time-fixed negative binomial regression model.     The empirical analysis results indicate that the cooperative network and knowledge network act independently and jointly on cross-regional industry-university collaborative innovation performance, which verifies the hypothesis proposed. First of all, the advantage positions of the region in the cooperative network influence cross-regional industry-university collaboration innovation performance and have significantly positive impacts on it. However, the location of the region in the cooperative network includes centrality and structure hole. It can break through the cooperation link between different regions, promote the circulation and use of heterogeneous resources in a wider range, and is conducive to the formation of innovative results.     Secondly, the quality resources of the region in the knowledge network influence cross-regional industry-university collaboration innovation performance and have significantly positive impacts on it. Because when knowledge diversity and combination opportunity of knowledge network is better, the regional knowledge foundation is comprehensive and solid, which is conducive to the formation of new knowledge or competitive knowledge to realize cross innovation.     Finally, the regional cooperative network and knowledge network affect the cross-regional industry-university collaborative innovation performance collectively. Specifically, the knowledge diversity negatively moderates the influence of the centrality and structural hole of cooperation network on cross-regional collaboration innovation performance while the knowledge combination opportunity negatively moderates the influence of the structural holes of cooperation network on cross-regional collaboration innovation performance. On the one hand, under the high-level diversity of knowledge network, the region has a wide range of knowledge fields. And then the excessive knowledge and resource load lead to redundancy innovation capital and disperse personnel investment in the region. Otherwise, under the low-level diversity of knowledge network, the regional knowledge field is single and thin. And then, the specialized knowledge and resources are conducive to deepening the exploration in the specialized field and forming the unique competitive advantage of the region. On the other hand, under the high-level combination opportunity of knowledge network, there are many connections between knowledge elements, and the willingness of knowledge reorganization is stronger than that of obtaining resources through cross-regional cooperation. Otherwise, under the low-level combination opportunity of knowledge network, there are few connections and combination possibilities between knowledge elements. And then, there is a strong motivation to obtain innovation resources through cross-regional cooperation, so it is more likely to form cooperative relations with other regions to produce innovation results and improve innovation performance.     Based on the above research conclusions, this paper puts forward suggestions for the behavior of different innovation subjects. Firstly, the enterprises and universities between regions should strengthen the sense of cooperation and establish rich and direct cooperative relations through projects and alliances. Then the cooperation path between innovation subjects can be shorten and the innovation efficiency can be improved，which is conducive to realizing innovation resource sharing and value co-creation. Secondly, the region should expand the knowledge field by means of technology reproduction or talent introduction, and create unique and competitive knowledge resources to provide inexhaustible impetus for innovation. Thirdly, the government should play a guiding and service role in cross-regional collaborative innovation. It is meaningful for regions to encourage cooperation between different regions and different subjects by establishing effective cooperation platforms, mechanisms and norms, so as to create conditions for the subjects to form cooperative relations and produce innovative results. References | Related Articles | Metrics

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Quality capability and technological innovation efficiency——A study from the quality upgrade perspective Zhang Zhiqiang, Zhang Xi 2022, 43(2): 90-99.  Abstract ( 184 )      Quality has become an important bottleneck restricting China′s economic development under the "new normal". Through actual surveys and related research results of manufacturing companies in Beijing, it is found that manufacturing companies mostly have quality capability problems such as lack of quality planning, inadequate quality control, incomplete quality assurance, and low-quality improvement, and technological innovation issues such as insufficient investment in technological innovation and lack of technological innovation achievements. Quality capability has an important impact on technological innovation. Some basic concepts of quality management, such as customer orientation, process management, and continuous improvement, all play an important role in innovation. A series of quality management systems and methods, such as Performance Excellence Model, ISO9001, Design for Six Sigma, Quality Function Deployment, are widely used in innovation management practices. Quality management runs through the entire process of enterprise innovation. The stimulation, realization, and diffusion of industrial innovation all require a quality management process to ensure the effectiveness of innovation. There have been many studies on the impact of quality management practices on innovation, and both promotion and inhibition are involved. However, the existing research has not formed a comprehensive understanding of the definition and dimensions of the enterprise′s micro-quality capabilities, and lacks theoretical guidance. What is the mechanism of the relationship between the quality capabilities and technological innovation efficiency? Do different levels of quality capabilities differentiate the efficiency of technological innovation? These problems still lack quantitative empirical research.    In order to fill in the research gaps above, this paper refers to the definitions of core competence theory pioneers Prahalad and Hamel from the perspective of quality upgrade and defines quality capability as the ability basing on the accumulated quality knowledge and resources that enterprise can use to continuously create value for customers, unique comprehensive quality planning, control, guarantee, and improvement capabilities. By referring to the four stages of the quality management process summarized in the Juran Quality Management Manual: quality planning, quality control, quality assurance, and quality improvement, this article divides quality capability into four dimensions: quality planning capability, quality control capability, quality guarantee ability, quality improvement ability. According to the data availability and the specific situation of the collected data indicators, customer satisfaction, product quality grade rate, quality management related system certification and quality loss rate are selected as quality capability measurement indicators. According to the survey data of 168 manufacturing companies in Beijing, this paper uses the quantile method to divide the enterprises in three quality capabilities types: low, medium and high. The three-stage DEA model is used to explore the heterogeneity of technological innovation efficiency of low, medium and high-quality capabilities, and the following conclusions and recommendations are drawn.     First, the upgrading of quality capabilities has a significant role in promoting the efficiency of technological innovation. The upgrading of quality capabilities will inevitably lead to the improvement of technological innovation efficiency. The study found that regardless of whether environmental factors are excluded, the comprehensive technical efficiency value of high-quality capability enterprises is significantly higher than that of medium and low-quality capability enterprises. After excluding environmental factors, the value of comprehensive technical efficiency of enterprises with low quality capabilities dropped significantly, indicating that low-quality capability companies were in a favorable environment but failed to achieve high efficiency of technological innovation or convert existing resources into technological innovation, and also lack of the ability to continuously improve and optimize integration. The result reveals that quality capability is an important factor influencing enterprise technological innovation. Therefore, enterprises should pay attention to the improvement of quality capability while increasing investment in technological innovation, and the government should guide enterprises to participate in quality activities, encourage enterprises to improve quality capabilities by increasing quality awards and its social influence, and then promote technological innovation. The enterprise itself should also fully recognize the importance of quality capability to the growth of technological innovation efficiency, actively participate in quality management training, create an effective corporate culture that is conducive to improving quality capability, and combine other advantages to improve quality capability.     Second, among the environmental influencing factors, the education level of laborers has a significant positive impact on the efficiency of technological innovation of enterprises, and the number of years of establishment has a significant negative impact on the efficiency of technological innovation of enterprises. The regression coefficients of laborers′ education level and years of establishment are both significant at the 10% significance level. The regression coefficients of laborers′ education level and each input slack variable are negative, and the regression coefficients of the establishment age and each input slack variable are positive values. The effect of firm size and corporate profit on the variable of technological innovation efficiency input is different. The government should increase the preferential policies for highly educated talents, introduce high-quality talents, and attach importance to the construction of quality management teams; encourage enterprises with earlier establishment years to strengthen technological innovation. The government should not only meet the current production and operation benefits, but also focus on technological innovation, and accelerate the conversion of technological innovation input to output in order to achieve long-term development of enterprises. Large-scale enterprises should rationally allocate the number of scientific researchers and scientific research input ratio according to their situation, to improve the efficiency of technological innovation. High-profit enterprises should overcome inertia and improve innovation driving force, give full play to its own capital advantages, rationally allocate R&D institutions, and thereby improve technological innovation capabilities.     Third, low-quality capabilities restrict the efficiency of technological innovation in enterprises. The unreasonable scale of technological innovation is also an important reason for the low efficiency of technological innovation in enterprises. After excluding environmental factors, the comprehensive technical efficiency value of high-quality capability enterprises decreased by 3.45%, and the low-quality capability enterprises decreased by 15.26%.The result indicates that low-quality capability companies are in a favorable environment but the technical efficiency is low, and that enterprises failed to effectively use their own technology resources, human resources, equipment, capital and other quality resources, and also shows that low-quality capabilities restrict the efficiency of technological innovation. Enterprises should pay attention to the cultivation of quality capabilities, actively participate in quality management training and quality activities, find needs in quality management activities, meet demands, continuously improve, optimize and integrate resources. Meanwhile, enterprises should adjust the scale of enterprise technological innovation to make it more reasonable, and effectively improve enterprise technological innovation effectiveness. References | Related Articles | Metrics

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Impact of economic policy uncertainty on R&D investment smoothing of enterprises Xie Qiaoxin, Zhang Yu 2022, 43(2): 100-107.  Abstract ( 235 )      The fluctuation of a firm′s R&D (Research and Development) investment has typically caused high adjustment costs, such as researcher hiring and lay-off costs, information spillover risks, overtime costs etc., which will undermine firms′ competitiveness on the long term. Meanwhile, due to severe external innovation financing constraints caused by high information asymmetry and high failure risks, external financing of innovation investment is risky. Internal financing for innovation investment is mainly about firms′ internal cash flow internal, which is highly volatility because it′s sensitive to macro-economic environment, industries cycle and firms′ operating activities change. Thus, firms′ R&D investment face greater financing risk than other capital investment. High financing risk and high adjustment costs arising from inadequate financing force firms to strive to maintain a relatively stable innovation investment during multi-periods. In face of financing uncertainty, R&D investment smoothing is a strategic behavior that using liquid assets with low adjustment costs to support financing support R&D investment with high adjustment costs, which is aim at maintaining sustainability of firms′ innovation investment and avoiding high adjustment costs trigger by R&D investment reduction or suspension.     Considering China′s transition economy characteristics, government still has a strong influence and control capability on economic resources and there exists high correlationship between economic policy and firms′ behavior such as financing and investment. In addition, unlike Western developed countries, the introduction and implementation of China′s economic policies is more direct and convenient in terms of political procedures, economic policy uncertainty environment faced by firms located in China. Thus, the research about micro impact of economic policy uncertainty on the firms′ R&D investment smoothing behavior is of great importance for understanding firms′ dynamic characteristics of innovation investment under highly uncertain conditions.     Although there are many literatures discussing economic consequences of economic policy uncertainty from macro-perspective and micro perspective, such as unemployment, economic growth, firms′ financing and investment behavior etc., the discussions about the impact of macro-economic policy uncertainty on micro firms′ innovation activities is still limited, especially for the impact of economic policy uncertainty on firms′ R&D investment smoothing from dynamic perspective. The relationship between economic policy uncertainty and firms′ innovation sustainability is still unclear.    Based on theoretical analysis, the impact of economic policy uncertainty on firms′ R&D investment smoothing mainly through two mechanisms: Firstly, heightening economic policy uncertainty motivate firms′ R&D investment smoothing by increasing R&D project financing risks. Under heightening economic policy uncertainty, both of external financing and internal cash flow would become more unstable and unpredictable. Secondly, heightening economic policy influence on firms′ R&D investment smoothing by changing R&D investment adjustment costs.    Using the data of Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed companies in manufacturing and information technology industries from 2012 to 2016, this paper further empirically studies the impact of China′s economic policy uncertainty on the firms′ R&D investment smoothing by using panel regression model. The results show that the increase of economic policy uncertainty has strengthened the firms′ R&D investment smoothing. Compared with state-owned enterprises and enterprises located in high marketization districts, the strengthening effect is much bigger in private enterprises and enterprises located in low marketization districts.     This paper contributes to existing literature in two ways: Firstly, the existing literature mainly focus on the impact of economic policy uncertainty on the single-phase innovation activities from static perspective. This paper expands the research scope of economic policy uncertainty consequences by analyzing the impact of economic policy uncertainty on the several-phases innovation activities characteristics from dynamic perspective. Secondly, the previous research on the influencing factors of R&D investment smoothing behavior mainly focus on firms′ financing constraints and regional financial development level at micro level, the macro influencing factor of R&D investment smoothing is few. This paper enriches the existing literature of R&D investment smoothing by combining the economic policy uncertainty with firms′ R&D investment smoothing behavior, which helps to understand the firms′ R&D investment smoothing behavior adjustment under economic policy uncertainty condition and enrich the research on the correlation between macroeconomic policy and micro firms′ behavior. Related Articles | Metrics

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R&D investments of competing firms under the asymmetric spillover effect Xia Jing, Niu Wenju 2022, 43(2): 108-117.  Abstract ( 157 )       With the competition of the business environment becoming more and more intense, a large number of firms are trying to make R&D investments to strengthen their cost competitive advantage. However, the R&D investment a firm made may exist spillover effect and benefit its competitors. Extant research primarily focuses on R&D investments under symmetric spillover effect. In practice, the asymmetric spillover effect is commonly seen because the degree of intellectual property protection varies across industries. Neither the role of asymmetric spillover effect in competitive environment nor the conditions where firms have incentives to make R&D investment have been explored in the literature. In this paper, we investigate the question of whether or not two competing firms should make R&D investments to reduce the production costs under the asymmetric spillover effect.    We consider four possible cases: the case where both firms make R&D investment, the case in which a single firm invests whereas the other behaves as the free-rider, and the case without R&D investment. We develop decision models in each of these cases by game theory and solve the equilibrium outcomes by backward inductions. Then, we make two-party comparisons of the equilibrium outcomes and comprehensively discuss the optimal R&D investment strategies. Furthermore, we conduct sensitivity analysis to demonstrate the impact of asymmetric spillover effect on the firms′ optimal expected profits, consumer surplus, and social welfare. Our main contribution is we explicitly identify circumstances in which competitive firms have incentives to make R&D investments. In addition, we explore how do factors such as asymmetric spillover effect, absorptive capacity, the probability of innovation success, and product substitutability affect the optimal decisions and profits of the game players. The main findings are as follows.     First, the asymmetric spillover effect plays a pivotal role in affecting the optimal R&D investment strategies of competitive firms. In particular, if both firms face a weak spillover effect, all of them make R&D investments. If the spillover effect of a firm is weak but the rival′s is strong, they will solely behave as the investor and the free rider, respectively. If the spillover effect is at an intermediate level, the two firms jointly make R&D investments, showing behavior of synchronization. Also, they may jointly opt-out of R&D investment and leads to a behavior of synchronization. If the spillover effect is strong, neither firm makes the R&D investment. Therefore, in the presence of an asymmetric spillover effect, we identify circumstances where there are two investors, a unique investor, and no investor at all. We give detailed explanations for these optimal R&D investment strategies from the perspective of effective demand, marginal revenue, and invest-related cost.     Second, the impacts of asymmetric spillover effect and product substitutability on the two firms′ optimal R&D investment strategies are as follows. Under a weak spillover effect, both firms make R&D investments, regardless of the degree of product substitutability. However, when the spillover effect becomes sufficiently strong, the optimal R&D investment strategies depend critically on the product substitutability. More precisely, if the degree of product substitutability is high, then the two firms are willing to make R&D investments. If it is low, neither firm makes the R&D investment. If the degree of product substitutability is at a medium level, they either jointly invest or joint exit. This is because a strong spillover effect means that a firm can get more benefits from the R&D investment of its competitor. On the one hand, either firm has an incentive to invest to reduce its production cost under an intermediate level of product substitutability; otherwise, it will suffer a loss in demand and profit. Hence, joint investing emerges. On the other hand, moderate product substitutability may go against the growth of effective demand and marginal revenue of the investor. Thus, the two firms may be reluctant to make R&D investments.     Third, an analysis of asymmetric spillover effect and absorptive capacity shows that both firms make R&D investments if the spillover effect is sufficiently weak. If the spillover effect is strong, then the absorptive capacity significantly influences the optimal R&D investment strategies. Specifically, neither firm makes R&D investment if the absorptive capacity is strong, but they jointly invest if the absorptive capacity is weak. When the absorptive capacity is at a medium level, the two firms either jointly invest or joint exit. As a result, the role that the absorptive capacity plays in affecting the optimal R&D investment strategies is similar to the effect of product substitutability.    Forth, the joint effect of asymmetric spillover effect and the probability of innovation success are as follows. There is no R&D investment if the probability of innovation success is sufficiently low, and joint investment occurs if it is high. However, it is optimal for the two firms to either invest or exist if the probability of innovation success is at an intermediate level. This is because in this case, the expected improved production cost finally helps the investors get more revenue. It is also could be that a medium level of probability of innovation success means a high invest-related cost to the investor. In the end, the investor′s optimal expected profit will be lower than when they do not make R&D investments. Consequently, a moderate level of probability of innovation success may lead to either a synchronous or an asynchronous investment behavior.      Finally, we reveal that the number of investors profoundly influences consumer surplus and social welfare. More precisely, both consumer surplus and social welfare are at the highest levels when the two firms jointly make R&D investments; they are in the lowest levels when there is no R&D investment, and they will be in the second place when a single firm makes R&D investment. Our sensitive analysis further indicates that customers and society are better off as long as the spillover effect is stronger, or any of the following factors becomes bigger: the probability of innovation success, absorptive capacity, and product substitutability. Related Articles | Metrics

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The research on the impact of financial-industrial on corporate different types of R&D investment Wang Yu, Xia Junnuo, Wang Xiaona 2022, 43(2): 118-125.  Abstract ( 119 )       Enterprise R&D activities are usually divided into three types: basic research, applied research and experimental development research. Among them, basic research and applied research can enhance the core competitiveness and future profitability of enterprises, as well as the main way of national scientific development and technological progress, and experimental development research directly transforms scientific research achievements into new products or applications, producing economic benefits. In contrast, the exploratory research in the basic and application stages has obvious public goods attributes, which has a serious mismatch between private benefits and costs. Moreover, the promotion of total factor productivity of enterprises in the current period is not as good as experimental development investment. Therefore, listed manufacturing enterprises are more willing to invest their capital in the experimental development stage with short R&D cycle and high profit monopoly, which results in serious shortage of investment intensity in basic research and applied research for listed manufacturing enterprises in China.      What is the impact of promoting high-quality development of the manufacturing industry and deep integration of the financial industry on different types of R&D investment? Based on the non-parametric quantile model, this paper makes use of the micro-data of manufacturing listed companies during 2008 and 2018 as research samples to explore the nonlinear and heterogeneous impact of financial-industrial integration on different types of R&D investment.      And the results are as follows: (1) The impact of financial-industrial integration on different R&D investment represents nonlinear effects, and shows a significant depression effect on the investment in the research stage, while it represents a "N-shaped" nonlinear characteristic on the investment in the experimental development stage. (2) Financial-industrial integration on different types of R&D investment has heterogeneous impact. With the increase of the quantiles, the depression effect on research stage is more obvious, and the promotion effect on experimental development is strengthened continuously, which has an optimal boundary. (3) With the deepening of financial-industrial integration, state-owned enterprises has obvious crowding out effect on R&D investment at the research stage, but it has a promotion effect on R&D investment at the experimental development stage. What′s more, financial-industrial integration of non-state-owned enterprises can improve their R&D level in the research stage, but it is not conducive to the investment of non-state-owned enterprises in the experimental development stage. (4) Generally speaking, the integration of industry and finance has obvious depression effect on R (the intensity of research stage), and obvious promotion effect on D (the intensity of experimental development), and the optimal combination level of industry and finance in research stage is lower than that in experimental development stage. That is to say, the optimal level of financial-industrial integration in the research stage occurs at a lower level of integration between industry and finance, while the optimal level in the experimental development stage occurs at a higher level of integration between industry and finance. The research in this paper shows that when Chinese listed manufacturing enterprises conduct external financing through the way of financial-industrial integration, they should think over different types of R&D investment, and choose a reasonable degree and way of financial-industrial integration which can adapt to their own innovation ability, so as to provide decision-making basis for improving the R&D investment intensity by selecting reasonable external financing methods.  Related Articles | Metrics

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The research on the evolution of autonomous vehicle′s technological trajectory: An integrated framework based on community recognition and main path analysis Zheng Suli, Wu Shenghao, Guo Jingjing 2022, 43(2): 126-136.  Abstract ( 221 )      Due to the great potential in technological, market and societal aspect, autonomous vehicle has become one of the best industrial choices for countries to develop digital economy and intelligent society. However, as autonomous vehicle technology integrated a variety of cutting-edge technologies, the technological trajectory of autonomous vehicles has a very high degree of complexity and uncertainty, which poses huge challenges to corporate innovation strategy planning and industrial policy formulation. The existing method of main path analysis identify the technological trajectory mainly based on existing patent citation relationship which is useful for technologies in stable or mature stage, but its accuracy will be greatly reduced when we try to use it for technology that is still in rapid development or turbulent stage, and it is also difficult to make accurate predictions about the future direction of the industrial technological trajectory. In recent years, more and more scholars tried to combine main path analysis with cluster analysis, text mining and other methods, or integrate multi-source data for more accurate identification and prediction of technological trajectory.    Based on the recent development in the literature, this paper proposed a systematic analysis framework which integrated the development dynamics of industrial technology, the evolution of technology main path and the strategy of leading enterprises. Through the systematic analysis of different information, the process, paths and trends of autonomous vehicle technological trajectory were comprehensively analyzed. To be specific, this paper first searched and sorted out the autonomous vehicle patent data from 1995 to 2018 in Derwent Innovations Index, and got 42332 patents filed in 34 countries/regions including the U.S., Japan, Europe, China and South Korea etc. Then the technology community was explored through community analysis, word cloud analysis, social network analysis and other methods, and the development path of autonomous vehicle technology was obtained through key-route main path analysis method. At last, the path, direction and driving factors of technological trajectory evolution were further explored by combining the leading corporate strategy and industrial development practice with the above results.     This study finds out that the development of autonomous vehicle technology has three different phases and ten main technological communities emerged gradually. Although the theme, scale, structure and leading firms of different communities are different, these communities have jointly promoted the continued development of autonomous vehicle technology. Second, the development of autonomous vehicle technology has formed a complex main path. This main path originates from different starting points and has undergone a process of fusion—separation—refusion—reseparation. With the advancement of the main path, the focus of technology has gradually evolved from assisted driving to partially automated driving and then to automated driving in complex scenarios. Third, as a whole, there are two routes for the technological evolution of autonomous vehicles: gradual innovation route and radical innovation route. The development of leading technologies has two different directions: self-intelligence mode depending heavily on sensors of the car and connected vehicle mode making use of V2X technology. The future evolution results will be determined by the joint influence of technology, market, and policy.      The development of autonomous vehicle technology started relative late in China, and generally speaking it is still in a fast-catch-up situation. Although the total number of patents of China is only less than the United States and Japan, the influence of our technology is still relatively weak, hence the future research and development work has a long way to go. The research results of this article have the following two enlightenments for the development of China′s autonomous vehicle industry: First, strengthen the research, monitoring and prediction of industrial technology development of autonomous vehicle, and accelerate the advancement of industrial technology innovation. Second, make action plans for key technology areas such as the connected car technology, and try to seize an advantageous position in the future development of autonomous vehicle technology. Related Articles | Metrics

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A case study of the evolution process of industrial routines from the perspective of organizational learning Lin Haifen, Chen Mengya, Qu Tingchen 2022, 43(2): 137-148.  Abstract ( 151 )       The rapid globalization and development of network technologies have been increasing the dynamic of the environment where firms exist and also facilitating the development of the "Internet + Industry" mode. As a result, a dramatic change in traditional industries and an evolution of industrial routines have occurred. Only through changes could these industries be able to obtain continuous development. Firms within these industries have to break up existing routines and create new ones. There are organizational routines and industrial routines. The former can be defined as an repetitive, recognizable patterns of interdependent actions, carried out by multiple actors; while the latter represents commonly recognized behavior rules and regulations within an industry which are always set up through a process of resources integration, and repetitive communication and exchange, by firms, especially these active ones. When confronting with the dynamic environment, firms need to recreate their organizational routines to obtain new competition advantages. Similarly, industries need to renew their industrial routines to seek a new direction for resource allocation and a new opportunity for further development, and create a new future. Therefore, it is necessary to address the issue of how industrial routines evolve based on the evolution of organizational routines within an industry.     Existing research has paid much attention to the definition, evolution and effects of organizational routines and also has realized the importance of industrial routines and their evolution. However, there are still some research gaps existing. For example, how do industrial routines evolve? Or how the evolution of organizational routines may facilitate that of the industrial routines? Although researchers have defined industrial routines and analyzed their characteristics, they still have not made a consistent cognition on industrial routines. Particularly, little attention has been paid to the relationship between organizational routines of firms in an industry and the industrial routine. In addition, some researchers have realized the important role of organizational learning in the evolution of organizational and industrial routines, they have not answered the question of how. Existing studies focus on the self-change mechanism of routines and regard self-change as the basic driver for evolution of routines. Though some mention that organizational learning is the key for self-change of routines and then for their evolution, little attention has been paid to how organizational learning may affect the evolution of routines or what effects organizational learning may produce.     Following the existing research and advocating the point that the evolution of participants′ organizational routines in an industry may drive that of industrial routines and organizational learning is the fundamental factor for self-change of organizational routines and consequently for the evolution of organizational and industrial routines, this research further addresses the question of how. It adopts an interpretive and exploratory case study on the transformation of the traditional agricultural technologies industry to modern agricultural internet industry and explores the cognition and behavior tendency evolution of both the leader and follower in the industry, namely organizational routines, by adopting the case study method from the perspective of organizational learning. It aims to explore how different modes of learning, imitation learning and trial-and-error learning, affect the evolution of organizational routines, and uncover the evolution process of industrial routines by setting up a process model for industrial evolution. Top Cloud - Agri Technology Co., Ltd. (TPYN) which firstly transformed itself from an agricultural technology supplier to a modern agricultural service offer, was selected as the leader in agricultural technologies industry; while firm A who imitated the activities and concept of TPYN in the transformation was selected as the follower. Over one year was spent in collecting data from TPYN and firm A, through approaches of semi-structured interviews, archival data, and observation; and the data was analyzed through a five-step process before a framework showing how industrial routines evolved was finally set up.     The results show that: the evolution of industrial routines go through a process of three phases: the organizational routines evolution of the leader, the organizational routines evolution of industry followers, and the formation of industrial routines; regarding organizational learning as an important factor to promote the evolution of organizational and industrial routines, the industrial leader relies on trial and error learning as a goal-oriented problem-solving mode to play an active pulling role in the evolution of its routines, while the industrial follower relies on imitating learning as a kind of action-oriented self-enhancement mode to play a passive pushing role in the evolution of its routines; although the industrial leader and follower adopt different learning modes, imitation learning or trial-and-error learning, they both depends on communication and interaction to establish new common understanding and cohesive action.     This research, which attempts to explore the evolution of industrial routines from the perspective of organizational learning, may contribute to existing theories of organizational and industrial routines. More specifically, based on existing research on the definition, the self-change mechanism and evolution process of organizational routines, it further explores how industrial routines evolve and set up a three-phase process framework of evolution; in assistance with existing research on effects of organizational learning on routines, it further explores how organizational learning affects the evolution of organizational and industrial routines, and finds that the leader and follower may rely on imitation learning or trial-and-error learning to make their routines changed. Meanwhile, this research may bring some suggestions for managers: firstly, the important role of organizational learning in the evolution of routines may remind managers paying more attention to the capability of learning. It is necessary to improve the capability of employees in understanding and applying professional knowledge through training and internal communication, and help them renew their knowledge to better finish their tasks, establish common understanding, set up consistent behaviors and even change their existing cognition and behavior tendency. By doing so, existing organizational routines could be changed and new routines could be created. Secondly, managers should adopt different learning modes according to the position of their firms in the industry and the objectives to make the routines evolved. Those who adopt goal-oriented problem-solving mode of trial-and-error learning may be able to actively make their routines evolved and get a new opportunity for further development and even become the leader of the industry; while those who adopt the action-oriented self-enhancement mode of imitation learning may become a follower. Finally, the evolution of only one or two leaders in an industry is unable to make the whole industry changed, so leaders should unite all participants to integrate resources of the whole industry to move it forward.  Related Articles | Metrics

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The research on customer knowledge sharing decision behavior based on evolutionary game Liu Lin, Wang Jiuhe 2022, 43(2): 149-159.  Abstract ( 169 )       In the era of value co-creation, the identity of customers has changed because the implementation of all value creation activities will be centered on the actual needs of users. And customers have become value leaders or co-creators, rather than value receivers and production resources of the enterprise in the traditional sense. Some research has found that customer participation can improve customer satisfaction and loyalty, and enhance customer recognition of the enterprise. Customers can not only provide ideas for creating new products, but also participate in the creation of new products, testing of finished products and providing continuous improvement when they participate in the enterprise′s product innovation.      As a complex decision-making behavior, knowledge sharing behavior is affected by many factors. Although scholars at home and abroad have studied the decision-making behavior of knowledge sharing from different perspectives, most of the research on knowledge sharing behavior focuses on supply chain knowledge sharing, virtual community knowledge sharing and organizational internal knowledge sharing, and there are few research results on customer knowledge sharing behavior. The customer knowledge sharing process is a dynamic process and the decision-making behavior of customer knowledge sharing is not generated once, but is generated in repeated games. Therefore, this article intends to study the decision-making behavior of customers participating in knowledge sharing from the perspective of customer-enterprise interaction and the evolutionary game model is used to establish a decision-making model for customer knowledge sharing on this basis. And the influence mechanism of factors such as knowledge sharing cost, knowledge reserve, sharing revenue and revenue distribution coefficient on the decision-making behavior of customer knowledge sharing is explored.      Through simulation analysis, it is concluded that: (1) when the sharing cost increases, knowledge sharing behavior can only occur if customers and companies have a high willingness to participate in knowledge sharing, which means that the increase in the cost of knowledge sharing is equivalent to increasing the difficulty of customer to participate in knowledge sharing to a certain extent and knowledge sharing behavior will occur only when the willingness of customers and enterprises to participate is high; (2) when the benefit of knowledge sharing increases, it can increase the willingness of customers to participate in knowledge sharing and the process of knowledge sharing is accelerated; (3) when there is a difference in the amount of knowledge reserve between the enterprise and the customer the knowledge sharing process will be delayed, and when the enterprise′s knowledge reserve is greater than the customer′s knowledge reserve, it will be more conducive to the occurrence of knowledge sharing behavior; (4) when the initial probability of enterprises participating in knowledge sharing is low, the occurrence of knowledge sharing behavior can be promoted by formulating a higher profit distribution coefficient for the enterprise, but allocating more shared benefits to customers will be more able to accelerate the process of knowledge sharing when the knowledge sharing behavior occurs.     In order to ensure the continuous occurrence of customer knowledge sharing behavior, firstly, enterprises should build a platform for real-time interaction and knowledge sharing for customers, and reduce the difficulty of customer participation in knowledge sharing by simplifying the participation process, which can reduce the cost of knowledge sharing of customers to a certain extent. Secondly, the enterprises should make full use of the knowledge shared by customers and on this basis to achieve knowledge innovation and maximize the benefits of knowledge sharing. Thirdly, the enterprise should formulate a scientific income distribution strategy based on many factors such as the composition of shared knowledge, the amount of knowledge reserves, the level of effort, the degree of contribution and the degree of risk aversion, ensuring the fairness and rationality of income distribution strategy.     As an important participant in knowledge sharing, customers should also actively share knowledge with the enterprises. Firstly, customers should be aware of their important role in the process of corporate innovation and actively participate in the knowledge sharing of enterprises. Secondly, as customers, we should have a sense of sharing and cooperation because the company′s product innovation, service innovation and management innovation are inseparable from the customer′s participation. Thirdly, customers should pay attention to the improvement of their knowledge sharing ability. Because the enhancement of knowledge sharing ability can enhance customers′ ability to express and absorb knowledge, thereby improving the effective utilization of knowledge and increasing the profit generated by knowledge sharing. Fourthly, customers should reasonably choose a way to share knowledge. Because different ways of participation will result in different participation costs and customers should choose a relatively low-sharing way to participate in knowledge sharing according to their actual situation, reducing the participation cost of customers. Related Articles | Metrics

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Difference decomposition of regional R&D achievement transformation efficiency and its spatial pattern evolution——An empirical study of high-tech industry Du Mingyue, Fan Decheng 2022, 43(2): 160-169.  Abstract ( 134 )      With the advent of the knowledge economy era, the progress of science and technology has become the fundamental driving force of economic growth, and the engine role of technological innovation has become increasingly prominent. In recent years, with the rapid development and wide application of scientific technology and information technology, the proportion of high-tech industry with knowledge intensiveness, information intensiveness and technology intensiveness has gradually increased. Under the new normal background, high-tech industry plays an important role in the process of steady growth, adjusting structure and implementing innovation-driven development strategy. The transformation of R&D achievements is related to the sustainable development of the industry.      By taking innovative and non-innovative production elements into consideration comprehensively, this paper selects input-output variables from three aspects including labor, capital, as well as technology. Afterwards it takes provincial panel data as the sample data. Then it uses StoNED model to evaluate the transformation efficiency of R&D achievements of China′s high-tech industry from 2011 to 2016, adopts the mean of logarithmic deviation and Theil index to decompose the regional difference of the efficiency, and combines ESDA and GIS technology to carry out spatial autocorrelation analysis and visualization analysis of the efficiency.      The results show that the overall level of the transformation efficiency of R&D achievements of China′s high-tech industry is not high, indicating that the R&D achievements emerged in the industry have not been efficiently transformed into economic returns. The efficiency shows the characteristics of regional imbalance. In addition, the efficiency has the unbalanced characteristic of "high value in the east and low value in the west", demonstrating that there is significant spatial heterogeneity in the efficiency, and there is still much room for improvement in low efficiency regions. From the perspective of China′s three regions, the total regional difference of the efficiency is determined by intra-regional difference and inter-regional difference. And the difference within regions is greater than that between regions. It shows that the total difference is mainly caused by intra-regional difference. The difference in the western regions is the most obvious, followed by the difference in the eastern regions. And the difference in the central regions is the smallest. In the period of 2012-2016, the fluctuations of the decomposition results calculated by the mean logarithmic deviation and Theil index are fundamentally similar. Although the total difference rises or drops from 2012 to 2016, it still rises on the whole.       The spatial correlation and heterogeneity coexist in the transformation efficiency of R&D achievements of China′s high-tech industry. The spatial agglomeration characteristics and spatial polarization phenomena exist in the high and low efficiency regions. Globally, through the Moran scatter plot, it is found that most provinces fall into the first quadrant and the third quadrant, indicating that the efficiency has a positive correlation, which is manifested as spatial agglomeration. And only a few provinces fall into the second quadrant and the forth quadrant, indicating that the efficiency has a negative correlation, which is manifested as spatial outlier, so the efficiency has a significant positive spatial correlation at the whole level. The characteristics of spatial agglomeration are as follows: the regions with high efficiency are adjacent, and the regions with low efficiency are also adjacent. From 2011 to 2016, Moran′s I index rises or drops from 2012 to 2016, but it still drops on the whole, indicating that the total difference rises on the whole. Besides, the results of global G coefficient indicate that the efficiency has significant spatial high-value agglomeration. The overall fluctuation range of global G coefficient is not obvious, indicating that the high-value agglomeration of the efficiency does not change significantly.       Global Moran index can reveal the spatial agglomeration characteristics of the transformation efficiency of R&D achievements of China′s high-tech industry in the whole research region. Local Moran index can be used to analyze the spatial agglomeration characteristics of the efficiency in different regions. When high-value clustering regions and low-value clustering regions coexist, they tend to cancel each other, so global G coefficient can only reveal high-value clustering or low-value clustering of the efficiency in the whole research area, whereas local G coefficient can be used to analyze the concrete spatial distribution patterns. Locally, the efficiency has a distinct spatial distribution pattern. And the efficiency is polarized in space, hot-spot areas and cold-spot areas are relatively concentrated in spatial distribution. Besides, LISA agglomeration regions and spatial cold-hot spots reflect similar spatial evolution law from 2012 to 2016. LISA agglomeration exhibits spatial agglomeration and spillover effects in local regions. Spatial distribution of cold-hot spots shows spatial polarization and high-value diffusion effects in local regions. What′s more, the high-high agglomeration regions correspond to the hot spots, while the low-low agglomeration regions correspond to the cold spots. What′s more, there is no significant local spatial autocorrelation in some regions, and global spatial autocorrelation can be further verified by local spatial autocorrelation. According to the theory of new economic geography, R&D achievements are important carriers of knowledge and technology, which are prone to produce spatial spillover effects in the transformation process of R&D achievements. The spatial diffusion effects of high-value agglomeration regions are characterized by periodical changes, which affect neighboring regions and the non-equilibrium of regional industry development. However, the radiation driving capacity of hot-spot regions is not fully reflected and the unbalanced development of regional high-tech industry is not continuously improved. The above findings imply that all regions should attach great importance to the spatial agglomeration characteristics of the transformation efficiency of R&D achievements. For H-H significant agglomeration regions, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui and other regions are the hot spots. The regions should make full use of location advantages, strengthen exchanges and cooperation with neighboring regions, and then benefit the surrounding regions. For L-L significant agglomeration regions, Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Tibet and other regions are cold spots. The relevant departments should give some policy preferences to support regional high-tech industry development. For L-H and H-L significant agglomeration regions, the regions are mainly distributed in Jiangxi and Sichuan. The regions should improve the industrial innovation system, build technology sharing and exchange platform, and promote industrial development. Related Articles | Metrics

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The research on the quality control mechanism of scientific and technological report integrated into scientific research management Xu Yan, Ma Sibei, Zheng Yanning 2022, 43(2): 170-175.  Abstract ( 156 )       It is an important way of improving the quality of scientific and technological report to accumulate scientific and technological resources effectively, promote the dissemination of scientific and technological information efficiently, improve the application of scientific and technological achievements. With the rapid increase in the number of scientific and technological report in China, the quality of scientific and technological report has gradually become prominent, and it will become an important factor affecting the efficiency of scientific and technological report sharing and the accumulation of scientific and technological resources in China.     In this paper, we discusses the construction of quality control mechanism of scientific and technological report integrated into scientific research management process,incorporate the behaviors of writers, managers, and evaluators of scientific and technological report into a unified research management platform, carry out detailed review and evaluation of scientific and technological report. The review and evaluation behavior will directly determine the quality of scientific and technological report, the progress of scientific research projects and scientific research performance. Integrating the quality control of scientific and technological report with scientific research management can effectively unify and link the writing, auditing and evaluation of scientific and technological report, reduce management costs, improve work efficiency, and achieve the goal of control the quality of scientific and technological report effectively.      In the design of the quality control mechanism, firstly, it analyzes the quality control principle of scientific and technological report based on scientific research process. Scientific and technological report are complicated, they are not generated and exist independently, but rely on scientific research projects and come out of the research process of scientific research projects, therefore, in order to control the quality of scientific and technological report, it must rely on the management of scientific research projects. Through the process of scientific research management, the submission, review and evaluation of scientific and technological report can be effectively connected. At the same time, the review and evaluation behavior will affect the results of technical report submission, project progress and evaluation. Secondly, it analyzes the quality control subjects, quality control methods, quality control processes, and quality control standards of scientific and technological report. On the same platform, different quality control subjects conduct fine-grained review and evaluation of the quality of scientific and technological report based on scientific research management processes and according to corresponding evaluation standards.     Improving the quality of science and technology report is a systematic project，a series of promotion strategies are needed to establish the quality control mechanism of scientific and technological report. It is necessary to strengthen publicity, training and improve the awareness of scientific and technological report, strengthen the protection of intellectual property rights in scientific and technological report and eliminate the doubts of scientific researchers, confirm the status and role of scientific and technological reports in project review, performance evaluation, personnel management, and title review, establish a reward and punishment mechanism based on scientific and technological report, incorporate the quality of scientific and technological report into the scientific research credit evaluation system. Only by improving the quality of scientific and technological report in all aspects and coordinating with people, things and things, can we establish a circular system of high yield, high quality and high utilization, improve the quality of scientific and technological report and achieve the ultimate goal of accumulation, dissemination, exchange, use and innovation of scientific and technological resources. References | Related Articles | Metrics

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Power concentration and independent innovation intention of entrepreneurs: An analysis from both internal and external perspectives Zheng Yaoyi, Su Yi 2022, 43(2): 176-183.  Abstract ( 151 )       Under the background of the new normal of economic development, which factor-intensive industries can be better promoted by entrepreneurs′ power concentration (EPC) for independent innovation? How does cross-level knowledge heterogeneity of entrepreneurs affect these relationships? In view of these problems, the above relationship is discussed from the perspective of industry factors and information/decision-making. Further, this study adopts panel data on the new ventures of the China′s Growth Enterprise Market, and uses the random-effects Tobit model and the random-effects negative binomial model to verify the above relationship.     The research indicates that: (a)EPC is positively associated with entrepreneurial ventures′ independent innovation intention (EVI); (b) compared with non-technology-intensive industries, EPC has a greater impact on the EVI in technology-intensive industries; (c) the higher the heterogeneity of knowledge between entrepreneurs and their teams, the greater the impact of EPC on the EVI; (d) the moderating effects of industry factors on the relationship between EPC and EVI also depends on the degree of knowledge heterogeneity between entrepreneurs and their teams. When the degree of cross-level knowledge heterogeneity of entrepreneurs is low, the positive effect of EPC of entrepreneurial ventures in technology-intensive industries is more prominent. When the degree of cross-level knowledge heterogeneity of entrepreneurs is high, the difference in the EVI between technology-intensive industries and non-technology-intensive industries driven by EPC will be narrowed.     This study contributes to the on-going scholarly on leader power and firm innovation in a few distinct ways. First,this study probes the relationship between EPC and EVI. Previous studies focus on the CEO/CTO power in established corporations. These studies pay less attention to the leaders of entrepreneurial firms and their power. Compared with the established corporations, entrepreneurial firms have low resource endowment. And powerful entrepreneurs tend to have more far-reaching influence on entrepreneurial firms′ innovativeness by integrating the internal and external resources. Therefore, the role of entrepreneurs′ power in innovation activities of entrepreneurial firms cannot be ignored. Second, the moderating effects of industry categories and cross-level knowledge heterogeneity of entrepreneurs are investigated. It provides new insights for upper echelons researchers. Few studies examine the impacts of external industry characteristics, and internal leaders and their teams′ functions on the relationship between leaders power and enterprise innovation. Specifically, existing literatures usually select a certain industry or take all companies in a certain country as samples to study the influence of leaders′ power on enterprise innovation. This impact has not been compared across industries. Moreover, strategic decisions of entrepreneurial firms are usually the result of the joint action of leaders and their teams. Compared with the established corporations, the external environment of entrepreneurial firms is more dynamic. The teams in entrepreneurial firms are required for undertaking the more extensive roles and complex tasks. A cross-level interaction between leaders and their teams will become particularly critical.     This study has a number of implications for research. First, entrepreneurial firms that seek independent innovation should be open to the idea of endowing their entrepreneurs with greater power to foster their innovative spirit. Specifically, the appointment of the leaders should follow the principle that the leader should serve as a CEO and other important positions in entrepreneurial firms, especially in entrepreneurial firms of technology-intensive industries. However, for non-technology-intensive industries, such centralized mode is not conducive to the cultivation and development of entrepreneurs′ innovative spirit due to the cross-domain limitations of entrepreneurs′ own knowledge. In this vein, entrepreneurs should change the original centralized mode and shift to reasonable decentralization. Moreover, for centralized entrepreneurs in different industries, improving the cross-level knowledge heterogeneity is an effective way to enhance the EVI in their industries. It can promote the formation of teams′ intelligence mechanism through the training of cross-level knowledge and skills. The establishment of this mechanism helps to enhance the positive impact of EPC on the EVI in technology-intensive industries. And it also facilitates centralized entrepreneurs make full use of centralized advantages to carry out cross-field circulation and integration of team knowledge. Accordingly, it promotes the transformation of enterprise development from being driven by traditional factor to driven by innovative factor, and ultimately boosting industrial upgrading and the transformation of national economy. References | Related Articles | Metrics

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Effects of inclusive leadership on employees′ job-related happiness in the new era Fang Yangchun, Yuan Qing, Zang Rui, Ren Yanhong 2022, 43(2): 184-192.  Abstract ( 489 )       Happiness is the collective goal of mankind. In March 2021, the United Nations released the World Happiness Report, which showed that the happiness index ranking of China rose from 94th to 84th. "2020 Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends" pointed out that 84.0% of Asians respondents rating job-related happiness trend "important" or "very important", which indicated that job-related happiness had become the focus of contemporary employees. Socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered a new era. So employees in the new era, represented by post-80s and post-90s, have great differences in work values from the past, and pay more attention to work self-perception and value realization. Nowadays, "involution" is increasingly serious, employees are involved in the whirlpool of ineffective competition, and their job-related happiness is gradually decreasing. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary to explore the potential mechanism of new era employees′ job-related happiness so as to design improvement measures.      Among the many factors that affect employees′ job-related happiness, the role of leadership has been paid more attention. Literature shows that inclusive leadership can positively predict employee job-related happiness. However, the previous literature on inclusive leadership and job-related happiness mostly adopted scales developed in western situations, and few integrate Chinese traditional culture and the era background. Supervisor developmental feedback is a guarantee for efficient communication between leaders and employees. Thriving at work is a psychological state in which individuals experience vitality and learning at work, which is closely related to new era employees′ job-related happiness. Therefore, supervisor developmental feedback and thriving at work may form a chain mediating effect between inclusive leadership and job-related happiness.      We constructed a research framework of the effect of inclusive leadership on new era employees job-related happiness based on Ability-Motivation-Opportunity theory. We conducted an online questionnaire survey on 380 enterprise employees in China, and collected 355 valid samples. The questionnaire mainly covers inclusive leadership scale (Fang Yangchun, 2014), supervisor development feedback scale (Zhou, 2003), thriving at working scale(Porath et al., 2012) and job-related happiness scale(Zheng et al.,2015). The inclusive leadership style scale was developed in the Chinese context. All variables were adjusted to better adapt to the Chinese context. SPSS 22 was adopted for reliability test and AMOS 23 was used for validity test. We use SPSS macro program PROCESS to test the main effect and chain mediating effect.     The results show that inclusive leadership positively affects new era employees′ job-related happiness. Both supervisor developmental feedback and thriving at work mediate the influence of inclusive leadership on job-related happiness. Supervisor developmental feedback and thriving at work play a chain mediating role between inclusive leadership and job-related happiness.      There are four aspects of research contributions. First, we analyze the effect of inclusive leadership defined in the Chinese context on job-related happiness, responds to the call for enriching inclusive leadership in Chinese organizational situations. The concept of inclusiveness in Chinese traditional culture is different from western context, and the connotation of inclusive leadership should be richer and deeper. Second, we focus on the topic of new era employees′ job-related happiness, and deepen the related research of job-related happiness promotion of employees in the new era. Researches on employee job-related happiness continue to emerge, but there are few studies that can combine the new era background and the characteristics of employees in the new era. Third, we put forward and verify the mediating role of supervisor developmental feedback and thriving at work. We not only expand the research on supervisor developmental feedback, but also provide a new thinking for the related research of thriving at work and job-related happniess. Fourth, the research constructs a chain mediating path. Compared with single mediating model or multi-mediating model, it can deeply analyze the internal influence mechanism of employees′ job-related happiness in the new era.      Research suggests that organizations should focus on cultivating inclusive leaders and actively promote employee job-related happiness. In practice, leaders should promptly recognize and support the work achievements of employees, listen to their voice inclusively and openly, and guide employees correctly to realize their growth and development. Leaders should stimulate their internal growth motivation by giving supervisor developmental feedback to boost their career development. In the new era, employees pay special attention to autonomy, participation and right to speak. So the managers should not only let employees actively experience and grow, avoid "involution" and "lying flat", but also hold some open activities and study training to improve their learning enthusiasm, thus promoting their feeling of thriving at work and job-related happiness. Related Articles | Metrics

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Executives′ transboundary experiences, executive incentives and enterprise innovation Xia Han 2022, 43(2): 193-201.  Abstract ( 255 )       Enterprises should not only focus on core competitiveness to keep mature markets, but also explore new markets and new technologies to achieve timely transformation and upgrading, so as to maintain competitive advantages. Innovation is the key to the survival and development of an enterprise. Therefore, the characteristics of executive team and enterprise innovation are the focus of theoretical and practical circles. Existing studies mostly discuss the influence of single characteristics such as executive education background, technical expertise, overseas background, academic background, political connection and social relationship network on innovation based on high-level theory, but ignore the interaction of individual characteristics such as transboundary and generalist. At present, the few studies on specialists and generalists have not reached a consensus. According to the higher order theory, professionals with professional and targeted knowledge structure tend to sign long-term contracts, and do not have to worry about the failure of innovation to endanger jobs, which is conducive to the realization of value creation in specific fields through the concentration of resources of specialized human capital under the protection of long-term contracts. The main reason for the difference is that high-level theoretical scholars study the impact of cross-border on enterprise innovation from the perspective of the innovation ability of cross-border executives, while institutional theoretical scholars study the impact of cross-border on enterprise innovation from the perspective of innovation willingness. They did not put the innovation ability and willingness of cross-border executives into a research framework. Moreover, the current crossover of senior executives is mainly from the perspective of generalists and professionals. However, with the convergence of industry development and the alternation of technology, most practitioners experience multiple positions and industries, and it is difficult to generally define a specialist or a generalist. Based on the above considerations, this paper believes that it is necessary to deeply discuss the relationship between executive experience crossover and enterprise innovation, clarify the situational effect of executive experience crossover on enterprise innovation, and deepen the understanding of relevant issues.     This paper theoretically analyzes the impact of executives′ crossover on enterprise innovation from two aspects of innovation ability and innovation willingness. The strategic decision of managers is the balance of the specific company system. Therefore, this paper analyzes the moderating effect of equity incentive and salary incentive on the innovation behavior of cross-border executives. The research hypothesis is put forward on the basis of above theoretical analysis. In addition, a multi-level regression model was used to analyze the impact of cross-border job types, industry and geography on enterprise innovation, as well as the moderating effect of executive incentives based on the panel data of executive team background, corporate innovation and corporate governance of a-share listed companies in China between 2016 to 2017 from CSMAR and CNISA. Several conclusions are drawn in this paper. Although the cross-border experience of senior executives has no obvious impact on the innovation investment of the company, it is conducive to the formation of compound knowledge structure and the improvement of the ability of senior executives, which can improve the innovation ability and willingness of senior executives as well as the innovation ability of the company. The improvement of the company′s innovation ability can improve the quantity and quality of the company′s innovation output. Under the condition that the R&D input remains unchanged, the improvement of innovation output can improve the company′s innovation efficiency. In other words, the cross-border experience of the management greatly contributes to the improvement of the innovation efficiency of the company. Industry experience is particularly significant in improving innovation efficiency. Salary incentive is a short-term incentive strategy, which has a more obvious incentive effect on the innovation behavior of cross-border executives who tend to sign short-term contracts. In other words, salary incentive has a positive regulating effect on the relationship between executives′ cross-border experience and corporate innovation. The lower the crossover degree of senior executives, the stronger the specificity of their human capital. Specific human capital tends to sign long-term contracts. Equity incentive is a long-term incentive strategy, which has a stronger incentive effect on innovation for executives inclined to sign long-term contracts, but a limited incentive effect on cross-border executives inclined to sign short-term contracts, that is, the moderating effect of equity incentive on the relationship between cross-border experience of executives and enterprise innovation is not obvious. This paper theoretically reveals the "black box" of the influence of executives′ crossover on enterprise innovation, and provides a new perspective for higher-order theoretical research. Empirical analysis of the impact of executives crossing boundaries on corporate innovation and the regulatory effect of executives′ incentives on their innovation behavior. The research not only provides beneficial supplement for the previous related research, but also provides guidance for the management of enterprises. However, this paper has some limitations. The research only theoretically analyzes the path effect of innovation ability and innovation intention, but has not done empirical analysis due to the lack of data. The following research will use the questionnaire method to make an empirical test on the innovation ability and innovation intention of cross-border executives, so as to enhance the explanatory power of the relationship between cross-border and innovation.      Senior management team plays a decisive role in enterprise innovation. The inter-disciplinary knowledge structure and coordination ability of cross-disciplinary executives can not only improve the innovation ability and willingness of individuals, but also greatly contribute to the improvement of the innovation ability of companies. Based on the above research conclusions, this paper proposes the following management implications. Advances in technology and industry convergence have led to an increasing demand for cross-industry senior managers. High-quality development of enterprises needs to keep pace with the times to develop talent training plans. Enterprises can improve the knowledge and capability structure of the management team through the cultivation and stimulation of internal trans-boundary talents, so that enterprises can adapt to the changing market environment. Enterprises should cultivate more compound talents and encourage internal staff to carry out re-education and professional training through reasonable contract design. Through the recruitment of cross - boundary executives with stronger innovation ability and willingness to inject new force into enterprise management. Cross-border executives can promote the development of enterprise innovation and enhance the value of the company′s innovation. Executive behavior is largely influenced by the corporate system. For professional executives who tend to sign short-term contracts, companies can promote innovation through long-term contracts and equity incentives. For generalist executives who tend to sign short-term contracts, companies can adopt short-term contracts and salary incentives to promote their innovation. References | Related Articles | Metrics

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Traits of personality that can be intervened: Impact of self-differentiation on employee innovation Qiu Luyi, Zhang Mengtao, Wang Mianzhui, Zhang Shengtai 2022, 43(2): 202-208.  Abstract ( 225 )      Innovation is particularly important for companies facing digital transformation. Self-differentiation, as a personality trait amenable to intervention, plays a vital role in employees striving for innovation by changing to counter change. Based on the resource conservation theory, this paper explores the internal mechanism between self-differentiation and employee innovative behavior from the inner and interpersonal perspectives. By establishing a structural equation model, this paper discusses how self-differentiation affects employee innovative behavior, and tests the mediating effect of psychological distance in the process of self-differentiation affecting employee innovative behavior. Questionnaire surveys were conducted among companies in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei to serve as an empirical sample. SPSS and AMOS were conducted to test the hypotheses.      The empirical results show that self-differentiation (intrapersonal level and interpersonal level) positively affects employee innovative behavior. Self-differentiation (intrapersonal level and interpersonal level) indirectly affects employee innovative behavior through the mediating role of psychological distance. The results of this study give credence to the mechanism of self-differentiation on employee innovative behavior, and help managers appreciate the amenability of self-differentiation to intervention, which has important implications for the management practice of motivating employee innovative behavior.      This study holds important practical significance for the management of employees at different levels of differentiation. It is imperative for managers to motivate employees with high self-differentiation level to give full play to their advantages and guide employees with low self-differentiation level to tap their potential. Based on the empirical results, this paper puts forward the following management suggestions: (1) Faced with the pressure of innovation brought by the digital age, highly self-differentiated employees are able to remain calm, think rationally and actively seek effective coping strategies. Managers should give such employees enough psychological security, provide them with professional technology and a platform to demonstrate their abilities, create an organizational atmosphere of active exploration and communication within the enterprise, and give full play to the advantages of highly self-differentiated employees. (2) Employees with low self-differentiation tend to react more emotionally. They have less control over their emotions at work, and exhibit submissive or domineering behavior in relationships. For such employees, on the one hand, managers should understand their working status in real time, control their role load and work pressure, reduce work-family imbalance caused by insufficient work resources, and reduce stress in time. On the other hand, managers should give recognition and support to their work performance, create a good sense of psychological security for employees, and reduce their concerns about carrying out out-of-role behavior, so that employees can overcome the resistance caused by risk aversion mentality when resources are insufficient. What′s more, work, in some sense, is a continuation of family life. As such, self-differentiation formed in family life may affect individual development at work. Managers should focus on helping employees keep a balance between work and family and normalizing the relationship by setting up a formal family support system (goodwill family policy, telecommuting, flexible work arrangements, child care services, etc.). Managers can also take the initiative to show low self-differentiation level employees informal family support by, say, helping them fulfill family obligations and balance work and family, so as to strengthen mutual commitment and trust between the company and the employee and redress resource imbalance caused by low self-differentiation or insufficient resources. Related Articles | Metrics