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Under limited technological resources, optimising financing channel to R&D investment has important theoretical and practical implications. This paper analyzed the threshold effects of internal financing channels and external financing channels on the R&D investment using 692 manufacturing listed companies' data from 2008 to 2015. And five threshold factors including the debt level, profit level, operational capacity, company's size, and bank loan ratio were used to estimate the threshold effects of different financing channels. The results show that internal financing has a positive threshold effect on R&D investment when the debt level is lower than the threshold value; equity financing is negatively related to R&D investment; debt financing has a significant negative effect on the R&D investment under certain threshold levels; government subsidies promote the R&D investment extremely for the companies with certain size and scale effect. Besides, this paper proposed corresponding suggestions for different threshold values and financing channels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This present paper studies the relationship between the industrial development environment (IDE) and the innovation efficiency (IE) of China’s high-tech industry. First, drawing upon insights from research on regional innovation systems and sectoral innovation systems, the paper proposes a definition of the IDE within which China’s high-tech industry exists. Then, by a factorial analysis, three main components reflecting the IDE are obtained: regional development conditions, regional consumption potential, and interactions between innovation actors. Furthermore, the impacts of various facets of the IDE on three kinds of IE are investigated through the DEA-Tobit regression approach. Based on the results, our analysis can provide information for policymakers to create a favourable environment for China’s high-tech industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper takes the China high- and new-technology enterprise (HNTE) program implemented in 2008 as a quasi-natural experiment. Difference-in-differences (DID) estimate with matching data from the China Industrial Enterprise Database, the China Customs Database and the HNTE Certification Database for 2006–2010 is used to study the impact of HNTE certification on enterprises' export product quality. The results show that, overall, HNTE certification promotes the upgrading of export product quality. Moreover, the improvement of innovation ability brought by HNTE certification is an important channel to promote such upgrades. A series of robustness tests also confirm the above conclusions. In addition, heterogeneity analyses are conducted based on the enterprise size, ownership and trade mode, respectively. The results show that the mechanism by which HNTE certification policy promotes export product quality through the improvement of enterprise innovation ability is more significant in non-SOEs and general trading enterprises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The firm survival risk is essential to intellectual property strategy implementing in China, however only a few studies focus on this problem. The paper investigates the effect of intellectual property rights protection system (IPR) on survival risk. Specifically, we use an event history analysis to track 8486 firms entering the market from the year 2000, and employ computing methods of the time-dependent Cox model. One important finding from this study is that the survival risks of R&D firms can be reduced approximately 22.57% by every additional unit of intellectual property, and the marginal effect raises to 28.33% with the exclusion of the administrative factors. Another important finding is that the relationship between IPR protection and survival risk is affected by R&D revenue. Finally, the survival risk for all those firms with substantive innovation rather than strategic innovation can be greatly affected by IPR system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper tries to disentangle between the influence of R&D subsidy and non-R&D subsidy, and explores the mechanism of different subsidies and their combination on R&D input and output of listed companies in China. It is found that both R&D subsidy and non-R&D subsidy can effectively motivate listed companies to increase R&D investment, and moderate non-R&D subsidy in subsidy combination can strengthen the 'incentive effect' of R&D subsidy on enterprise innovation. R&D subsidies can improve the innovation output of listed companies through direct and indirect 'double paths', but non-R&D subsidies have a certain 'masking effect' on the innovation output. Relevant government should control the non-R&D subsidy at the 'medium and low level' as far as possible to realise the 'strengthening effect' of moderate non-R&D subsidy on R&D subsidy in promoting enterprise innovation. The control of subsidy classification should be strengthened to avoid the adverse effects caused by non-R&D subsidies being 'diverted for other purposes'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theory-driven and theory-based studies on innovation in China are relatively scarce. Most innovation studies about Chinese business are based on Chinese policy and government programmes and their results. This special issue ofTechnology AnalysisandStrategic Managementexplores China's indigenous innovation strategy and suggests a research agenda that focuses on Chinese innovation theory building that incorporates China's efforts to move towards an innovation-based economy. Currently, China is developing its indigenous innovation capabilities (The Chinese term is 自主创新, pronounced zizhu chuangxin). We suggest that innovation studies of Chinese business could focus on these indigenous innovation ambitions. In addition to this, it could adopt, and be embedded in a Chinese theory of innovation instead of a traditional Western-centric theory of innovation. Our proposition is that to better understand Chinese indigenous innovation, a new paradigm of Chinese innovation should be developed. We therefore present a research agenda that can be a starting point for the development of such a theory, and present seven papers in this special issue that give content to this idea. Obviously no theory will have a monopoly on exploring Chinese innovation phenomena, but it is interesting to add a Chinese-centric view into the Western-centric scholarly view. We hope that will be one of the contributions of this special issue on innovation in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prolific inventors not only own higher innovation productivity, but also impact other inventors through innovation networks. This paper contributes to existing literatures by differentiating prolific inventors from non-prolific inventors in the network context, and making an empirical analysis of the effect of prolific inventors. We use the patent filing data from the State Intellectual Property Office of China (SIPO) in investigating the effect of prolific inventors on firm innovation. We use the patents filed by 10 largest Information & Communication Technology firms during 1995–2010 and establish the innovation network with patent co-inventing data. The empirical result shows that prolific inventors positively impact their partners who used to co-invent at least one patent with them. Furthermore, prolific inventors positively impact inventors who do not have a close contact with them. The closer the inventors are to prolific inventors, the more patents they produce. Members are thereby more likely to gather around prolific inventors and formulate intensive clusters. In networks centered by prolific inventors, useful knowledge outweighs redundant knowledge, and high clustering that facilitates knowledge flow is proved to be beneficial; while in networks without prolific inventors, high clustering may not be beneficial as there are less inventors holding advanced knowledge. Policy implications are discussed at the end of this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses panel data between 2000 and 2010 to explore how firm ownership and regional industrial structures contribute to regional innovation performance in Chinese provinces. Specifically, we explore how the extent of specialisation and diversification in regional industrial structures at the province level fosters both Marshall–Arrow–Romer and Jacobs spillovers, as well as how foreign and state ownership influence regional innovation. We find: (i) China's regional innovation systems benefit from Jacobs but not MAR externalities, with the former spurring higher quality innovation in the form of increased invention patenting; (ii) state-owned enterprises and foreign-invested enterprises advance local innovation, with the latter again fostering higher quality innovation; and (iii) a convergence towards a combination of low specialisation and high diversity in provincial industrial structure is taking place between China's more developed inland coastal provinces and less developed inland provinces. Implications and suggestions for policy-making and future research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the influences of equity and non-equity cooperation (equity cooperation involves equity sharing or exchange, while non-equity does not) on firms' product and process innovation from a knowledge-based perspective. The moderating effects of potential and realised absorptive capacity are also explored. In particular, the results of a survey of 281 firms in China show that equity cooperation has a stronger positive effect on process innovation than non-equity cooperation, whereas non-equity cooperation has a stronger positive effect on product innovation than equity cooperation. We further find that potential absorptive capacity enhances the relationship between non-equity cooperation and innovation (both product and process), and realised absorptive capacity enhances the relationship between equity cooperation and innovation (both product and process). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an increasingly competitive market environment, dual innovation which include exploitative innovation and exploratory innovation has become a magic weapon for enterprises to improve performance. This study identifies the mechanism of how collaborative dual innovation influence sustainable competitive advantage, and tests its intermediary role in innovation performance. Using the survey data of 256 mature enterprises in China, this study finds that collaborative dual innovation positively affects the sustainable competitive advantage of mature enterprises through partial mediation of innovation performance. In addition, it shows that the two dimensions of collaborative dual innovation, dual innovation balance (DIB) and dual innovation complementation (DIC), have different impact mechanisms and paths on enterprises' competitive advantage. While DIB has a direct effect on the competitive advantage, DIC strongly affects the competitive advantage both directly and indirectly through the mediating effect of innovation performance. This study sheds new insight of the interaction between dual innovation and sustainable competitive advantage, and provides a guidance to enterprises how carry out dual innovation effectively to maintain sustainable competitive advantages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aiming at the strategic behaviour in 'technology make-or-buy decisions' in the real economy, this study develops a Cournot competition model with endogenous technological level, by comparing the technology acquisition cost of technologically backward firms under different technology acquisition strategies, we theoretically analysed the 'anti-extortion' mechanism of indigenous innovation by technologically backward firms, and the relationship between indigenous innovation and technology imports is empirically tested by using the data of Chinese industrial enterprises above designated size. We show that indigenous innovation can significantly enhance a firm's bargaining power, and the technology acquisition strategy of simultaneous technology imports and indigenous innovation can not only reduce the technology imports cost but also reduce the indigenous innovation cost. Therefore, only by indigenous innovation based on technology imports, can firms enhance their market competitiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In today's fiercely competitive global market, developing new technologies is becoming ever more important for firm to stay competitive. Internationalised R&D is especially attractive to firms in developing countries who tend to lack exposure to advanced technologies. A series of studies found that firms who undertake internationalised R&D are more profitable, and some claimed that, overall, it increases patent output. Yet rarely have we studied how the different aspects of internationalised R&D influence technological innovation output. Fewer studies still have paid attention to internationalised R&D in China as the world's largest developing economy and a significant international competitor. Therefore, we conducted a study on the relationship between key components of internationalised R&D and technological innovation output in listed Chinese multinationals. From a literature review and cross-case analysis of four Chinese tech giants, we established network construction and knowledge acquisition as key processes in internationalised R&D, and technological and geographic diversity as key characteristics. We then defined a regression model and metrics and analysed a sample of 40 listed Chinese firms to determine how those characteristics relate and interrelate to the number of international patents held by each firm. The results show positive correlations for all hypothesis tests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to adopt the perspective of updating routines and knowledge to explore how organisational unlearning and relearning jointly facilitate strategic flexibility. Drawing on the knowledge-based view and routine view, this study builds a theoretical model and examines it with survey data from 194 firms in China. Organisational relearning is an important link between organisational unlearning and strategic flexibility. Specifically, organisational unlearning has no direct effects on strategic flexibility. Organisational unlearning promotes organisational relearning, thereby improving strategic flexibility. Organisational relearning fully mediates the relationship between organisational unlearning and strategic flexibility. Therefore, firms should regard organisational unlearning and relearning as interactive enablers for strategic flexibility rather than solely focusing on one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using panel data analysis for an industry-level sample of Chinese manufacturing industries from 2000 to 2009, the study examines how latecomers dynamically adapt technology acquisition strategy in terms of technology acquisition diversity during the transition process from imitation to innovation. Our research considers technology acquisition as a portfolio of technology channels and thus examines the impact of technology gap between domestic firms and foreign firms on technology acquisition strategy at the industry level. The findings reveal that technology gap positively affects technology acquisition diversity of Chinese manufacturing industries. Further, it shows that technological uncertainty weakens the positive impact of technology gap on diversity of technology acquisition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]