Abstract: Previous studies have paid a lot of attention to the relationship between government subsidies and corporate innovation. Most studies explored this relationship from the resource view, but only few studies looked into it from the signaling theory. Using the samples of enterprises in strategic emerging industries, this paper sets out to discuss the relationship from the two perspectives. We find that, in strategic emerging industries, government subsidies not only act as resources, which can promote corporate innovation input. It can also release the signals that the enterprises are in fast and healthy development, which can help enterprises obtain support and innovation related resources from the stakeholders, and ultimately promote corporate innovation output. To sum up, this paper helps us to better understanding the functions of government subsidies in strategic emerging industries, which has important theoretical and practical contribution.