With the blowout development of artificial intelligence, the ethical risks involved in it have also come into reality from science fiction works, and have become a hot topic for many subjects. Based on the technology acceptance model and risk perception theory, based on trust as a mediation, this paper constructs a research framework for the public's perception of artificial intelligence ethical risks and their willingness to participate in risk governance, and empirically tested the relevant hypotheses. The results show that AI ethical risk perception has a significant negative impact on public participation intentions. Among them, the public’s trust in scientific research institutions and the government plays a part of the mediating role between AI ethical risk perception and public participation. This conclusion provides a scientific basis for the construction of a new governance pattern of "government-led, expert-led, public participation, and social supervision", and has important practical significance for emerging technologies to achieve the “Tech for Social Good”.
Science and technology research and development should follow the concept of "science and technology for good", and the establishment of science and technology ethics and safety review mechanisms is very important. The scientific and technological ethics and safety review mechanism is an important part of the construction of the biosafety risk prevention and governance system. In order to ensure that the order value of scientific and technological innovation is not destroyed, the scientific and technological ethics and safety review must be transparent from "formal elements" to "substantial elements”, rigorous and standardized. At present, China has formulated many norms in terms of scientific and technological ethics and safety review. However, there are many overlapping and complicated contents between the norms, and the level of effectiveness is also low. Therefore, the dual structure of China's science and technology ethics and safety review mechanism should be shaped. Establish a scientific review mechanism from two aspects: internal review structure and external review structure. In the internal review structure, an independent review agency should be established. From the perspective of functions and scope of authority, the National Science and Technology Ethics Committee and the Local Science and Technology Ethics and Safety Review Committees are independent review organizations, and they have the entitlements to formulate science and technology ethics and safety review standards. In terms of the scope of review obligations, the science and technology ethics committee shall be obliged to disclose the review information of science and technology projects, the handling of major science and technology ethical risk events, and the review decisions of science and technology projects in accordance with the law. The linkage between review agencies can effectively avoid potential hidden dangers of scientific and technological ethics and safety, so as to ensure that the review subjects can be fully covered and coordinated. The review agency shall formulate unified scientific and technological ethics and safety review substantive rules and procedural rules, and deal with the scientific and technological research and development activities，scientific and technological output results from the four aspects of review methods, review standards, review types, and subject legal responsibilities. Under the coordination of the Biosafety Law, the principles of science and technology review, ethical justice, transparency, and public participation have been clarified. In the external review structure, establish a credit mechanism and a negative list system to shape a public participatory review model. Institutions engaged in major scientific and technological research and development shall truthfully disclose the information of scientific and technological ethics review to the public, including clinical trials, standard operating procedures, informed consent, suspicious and unexpected serious adverse reactions, and take corresponding modification and relief measures for the review results, which shall be subject to social supervision, with a view to effectively regulating the experimental behavior and results output in scientific research and development, in order to effectively avoid scientific and technological ethics and safety risk. Reasonably protect the legal rights and interests of the subject in the process of biotechnology research and development, avoid the risks of scientific and technological ethics, and truly realize the good governance of science and technology that integrates substantive ethical justice and procedural review justice.
Original innovation is the high ground of international competition of science and technology. At present, China attaches great importance to cultivating original innovation, but the research on the inherent characteristics of original innovation has been neglected. This paper takes high-temperature superconductor (HTS) research as a typical case to construct the history of knowledge by sorting out critical time nodes and major scientific events. Based on this, we define the concepts, characteristics and connotations of original innovation, first-order innovation and second-order innovation. The disruptive and paradigmatic discovery of HTS is an original innovation which has changed the overall pattern and research outlook of the superconductivity research field. Moreover, there are two types of the first-order innovation: the first type is disruptive, but not as good as the original innovation and fails to create a new paradigm; the second type promotes the progress of normal science best before a new paradigm is established. Furthermore, the second order innovation is an important achievement of tracking and expanding original innovation. It is a feasible approach to analyze the internal characteristics of innovation and judge the order of innovation with the method of history of science.
High quality planning is an important prerequisite for high quality plan implementation. Ex-ante evaluation is not only a powerful tool to improve the quality of Science and Technology and Innovation (STI) planning, but also an important measure to implement the central government’s instruction of "grasping strategy, plan, policy and service". Today, in the field of China's STI planning, it is necessary and urgent to introduce the ex-ante evaluation mechanism to enhance STI planning quality as well as subsequent STI plan implementation efficiency and effect especially at departmental and regional level, and establish an overall monitoring and evaluation system covering the whole life cycle of STI plans. Although a good plan should be distinguished from bad ones, the ex-ante evaluation of STI plans in China nowadays should focus on the document quality instead of the ranking of alternatives, which is different with ex-ante evaluation of plans in other fields like land use, urban or local development.
In 2021, the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) of China entrusted the National Center for Science and Technology Evaluation (NCSTE) with ex-ante evaluation( or quality evaluation) of the drafted 18 National Special STI 14th Five-year Plans. It is the first time that ex-ante evaluation was introduced into the management of STI plans in China. Based on the pilot project of ex-ante evaluation of National Special STI 14th Five-year Plans and relevant foreign studies on plan quality evaluation, a general evaluation framework including 14 criteria for ex-ante evaluation of STI planning was put forward from the four aspects of external validity, internal validity, process compliance and potential risk.
The external validity aspect consists of 3 criteria: consistency with national strategies and policies, consistency with superior plan and coherence with other plans. The internal validity aspect includes 7 criteria: accuracy of fact and problem definition, scientific objective setting, rationality of tasks, effectiveness of ensurance measures, internal consistency, feasibility of monitoring and evaluation, and format of the content. The process compliance aspect focuses on 2 criteria: normativeness of planning process and participation of the public. The potential risk aspect could be evaluated by 2 criteria: internal implementation risk and external environmental risk. Moreover, evaluation tools and methods like policy comparison, superior plan comparison and Objective Tree analysis are also developed correspondingly.
Although the above exploration of STI plan ex-ante evaluation criteria and corresponding evaluation tools and methods needs to go further and deeper in the future, it is still possible that they may provide reference for ex-ante evaluation of development plans in other fields in China.
At present, Central China has been promoting the experiment of establishing free trade zones and constantly expanding the influence radius of China Railway Express. The products in Central China can arrive in European market and Western Asia more conveniently and safely. Compared with the Eastern and Western regions, Central China has two main disadvantages in the process of expanding the scale of foreign trade: geographical location and policy environment. However, through participating in Belt and Road initiative, these two disadvantages are disappearing. On the whole, the scale of foreign trade in Central China is expanding fast, showing a trend of "from south to north". Foreign trade can effectively optimize industrial structure, stimulate technological progress and improve policy environment, so that participating in international trade and integrating into international market provide opportunities for Central China to promote industrial transformation and strengthen new momentum to drive development. However, both theoretical and empirical studies have confirmed that foreign trade is a "double-edged sword" for regional development. While foreign trade promotes enterprise profits and stimulates economic growth, it also contains the risks of "anti-dumping", "entity industry hollowing out" and rupture of industry chain. Whether foreign trade in Central China can steadily promote regional intensive growth needs to be clarified.
Total factor productivity (TFPR) represents the efficiency of social production and the operating benefit of enterprises, which can precisely reflect intensive growth in a region. Therefore, qualitative analysis has been made on the impact of foreign trade on total factor productivity of prefecture-level cities in Central China and its possible impact mechanism. At the same time, econometric models have been constructed to empirically test the impact of foreign trade on total factor productivity based on the data of prefecture-level cities in Central China from 2006 to 2017. The results show that: Firstly, foreign trade in Central China has a direct and positive impact on regional TFP, and will have positive and indirect impact by improving the absolute level of industrial specialization and increasing the level of government expenditure; Secondly, the industries in Central China are too dependent on policies that foreign trade cannot stimulate the technological innovation obviously, and technological innovation cannot transfer into economic benefits smoothly as well; Thirdly, if a city is relatively lower in openness and scale but with better policy environment, it will receive higher improvement in TFP by expanding foreign trade; Lastly, foreign trade has heterogeneous impact on cities with different relatively specialized industries.
Based on the above research results, we suggest: First, further expand the scale of foreign trade of cities in Central China, especially expand the scale of international trade in small and medium-sized cities. Second, expand diversified international product markets and increase the stability of international trade markets. When expanding international markets, more attention should be paid to cultural distance and institutional distance. Third, promote specialized industrial agglomeration and industrial transformation in Central China to improve the international competitiveness of products. Central China, in particular, should pay attention to improving the efficiency of transforming innovation into benefits.
Patent invalidation is an effective tool for adjusting patent examination errors and optimizing patent quality. However, the utilization rate of China's patent invalidation system is at a low level and it is unable to achieve its function.Therefore, how to increase the probability of patent invalidation requests becomes a key issue in improving the utilization rate of the patent invalidation system. For the convenience of research, we define the probability of a request for patent invalidation as patent invalidation propensity, and propose what factors will affect and how to affect it.
In this regard, we introduce transaction cost theory to explain the institutional logic and economic principles of patent invalidation propensity. According to the litigation dispute selection model, we propose the five determinants that affect the patent invalidation propensity, including the legal stability of patent, litigation expectation, cost of the patent invalidation, the market value of patents, and degree of information asymmetry.Furthermore, we collect 671 invention patent infringement lawsuits announced in 2019 through the Wolters Kluwer advanced law database and incoPat patent database. Meanwhile, five proxy variables, namely the patent invalidation experience, patent damages, type of party, scale of patent family,and claim, are selected as independent variables, and the Logistic regression model is used to conduct an empirical analysis of the influencing factors of patent invalidation propensity in litigation.
The research finds that the legal stability of the patent and the cost of patent invalidation weaken the defendant’s patent invalidation propensity, while the plaintiff’s expectation of litigation and the market value of the patent promoted it. The degree of information asymmetry has no significant correlation with it.Finally, it concludes that China should ensure that patent holders realize their reasonably expected benefits in litigation, establish reasonable cost compensation or transfer rules for patent invalidation, and also focus on the effect of high-quality patent cultivation and promotion of patent technology transfer and commercialization to enhance or play the role of patent market value.
The theoretical contributions of this study are as follows. First, we apply the transaction cost theory to the research on the patent invalidation propensity in patent infringement litigation, verify the validity of the theory in this situation, and broaden the application scenarios of the theory. Second, the influencing factors and mechanism of patent invalidation propensity are explored from the three dimensions of patent characteristics, meanwhile, the behavioral logic of the patent invalidation request also is clarified, which enriches the domestic empirical study referring to patent invalidation. Third, the results of this study also show that the information asymmetry in the context of China's patent infringement litigation has not affected the propensity of patent invalidation, which is a supplement and an amendment to the existing literature. In terms of practical contribution, we believe that clarifying the influencing factors of invalidation propensity in patent infringement litigation can help increase the utilization rate of the patent invalidation system, ensure the function of modifying patent examination errors and achieve the goal of optimizing the patent quality in China.
With the continuous penetration of the digital economy and the emergence of a large number of digital platforms, the platform model has become an important engine for economic development. Although the existing platforms adopt similar development strategies, the market performance of different platforms is quite different. The reason is that one of the platform characteristics, the platform-based digital function plays a vital role in the relationship. In order to deeply explore how platform-based digital functions affect the relationship between platform strategy and platform market performance, this research conducted an empirical test based on 277 questionnaire survey data. The results found that: (1) The relationship between platform scale strategy and platform exclusivity strategy and platform market performance are all affected by platform-based digital functions; (2) Platform scale strategy has a greater impact on platform market performance under the influence of community support functions; (3) The platform exclusivity strategy has a greater impact on platform market performance under the influence of the data enabling function. This research analyzes the reasons for the differences in market performance of different platforms from both the participant layer and platform layer, and quantifies the effect of digital functions on platform’s growth, finally contributes to the relevant research fields of platform performance management and digital functions.
In the era of the digital economy, it has been prevalent for firms to create values and obtain a competitive advantage by integrating external and internal resources through digital platforms. Yet, it remains unclear how values can be created by using digital platforms. Drawing on the resource orchestration theory, we identify two managerial actions, the digital platform architecture flexibility (PAF) and integration capability (IC), to explain how them work together to improve competitive performance in digital platform context. Based on analysis of 129 samples of Chinese firm, the results indicate that 1) the digital platform architecture reusability (PAR), compatibility (PAC) and extensibility (PAE) have positive effects on the competitive performance (CP); 2) the IC of digital platform acts as mediation role in the effect of PAC and PAE on CP. These findings extend the applicability of the resource orchestration theory in the digital platform context, which bringing more insights to the research on the mechanisms of using digital platforms to create values.
Serial entrepreneurship is common in China, and extant literature has suggested that serial entrepreneurs differ from inexperienced entrepreneurs in several ways. Existing studies have substantially improved our understanding of serial entrepreneurship, its increased access to capital, the position to learn from earlier experience, insight into this topic remains limited in at least two ways. First, most prior researches shed lights on the individual changes of serial entrepreneurs by studying the learning process and cognitive enhancement, while the understanding on the impact of outside factors on serial entrepreneurs remains limited, there is emerging evidence in entrepreneurship that venture environment has salient influence on entrepreneurial activities. Second, there is a prevailing assumption in existing literature that entrepreneurial passion which indicates strong enthusiasm and perseverance leads to beneficial outcomes, but none of extant researches explores the passion status of serial entrepreneurs and the role of it in serial entrepreneurship, which limited our understanding on the interpretation boundary of passion theory.
In this paper, we study the influence of socio-cultural factor (social tolerance) on serial entrepreneurs’ performance through the mediation of entrepreneurial passion and efficacy. We draw on socio-culture literature and entrepreneurship literature, arguing that a tolerance social culture offers serial entrepreneurs a light-hearted environment to overcome failure experiences, and their subsequent venture activities will not suffer from crisis of lacking legitimacy which may hamper their access to resource support, therefor they may easier achieve success under such a tolerant environment. Furthermore, we adopt entrepreneurial passion and efficacy simultaneously to further explain the mechanism of social tolerance on serial entrepreneurship.
The sample used in this study includes 225 serial entrepreneurs from 25 provinces in China, all entrepreneurs have at least one time failure experiences. Our results provide support for the antecedent role of social tolerance on passion and venture performance, and provide no support for mediation effects of passion on the performance of the subsequent business, which is consistent with prior research, but confirm the serial mediation effects of passion and efficacy on subsequent venture performance.
Based on expected value theory, this research presents hypothesis of the impact of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) on the strategic emphasis. Combined with power theory and upper echelons theory, this research explores the marginal value of EO on strategic emphasis. Multi-source and multi-year data set of Listed Companies in biomedical manufacturing industry were constructed. The research conducts multi-level regression model analysis and robustness test to test the hypothesis. The results show that EO can effectively promote the shift of strategic emphasis to value creation; Executive power and TMT age heterogeneity both strengthen the positive relationship between EO and strategic emphasis; At the same time, executive power has a secondary moderating effect, that is, when executive power is high, the positive moderating effect of TMT age heterogeneity on the relationship between EO and strategic emphasis is stronger. This study reveals the internal mechanism and dynamic process of the influence of EO on the formation of strategic emphasis, and provides reference for the application of EO at the firm level and the practice of strategic emphasis decision management.
Most researches on R&D subsidies focus on the evaluation of the effect of subsidies,but the research on the allocation of R&D subsidies is insufficient.We can observe the Matthew effect in the distribution of R&D subsidies which means some companies take away most subsidies while others never get once. This paper analyzed the causes of Matthew effect,including Pick the winer system,Learning accumulation effect,Reputation advantage,Interest group capture and Government audit factors.We divided Matthew effect into vicious Matthew effect and virtuous Matthew effect by different causes.The empirical results show that there was obvious Matthew effect in the allocation of R&D subsidies and the enterprise economic indicators and R&D indicators had significant positive effects on persistence of subsidy, which indicated that the Matthew effect of R&D Subsidy in China is virtuous Matthew effect.We tested the influence of Matthew effect on enterprise R&D by PSM,finding that virtuous Matthew effect had a positive influence on Enterprise R&D activities.
Under the condition of deep digitization, how embeddedness of digital technology in breakthrough innovation eliminate industry barriers and the uncertainty of technological innovation and how latecomer take advantage of the "window of opportunity" of digital breakthrough innovation are urgent issues to be solved at present. Based on systematically analyzing new connotation and new characteristics of breakthrough innovation under the condition of deep digitalization, the mechanism and innovation paths of how deep digitization promoting breakthrough innovation under the scenario of late-developing country were expounded theoretically. Some solutions to overcome multiple barriers at organizational, industrial and national level by using digital means were proposed. Furthermore, challenges and countermeasures for future breakthrough innovation were came up to provide references for expanding the theoretical system of breakthrough innovation under the condition of deep digitization and exploring new opportunities of breakthrough innovation in latecomers represented by China.
To further promote the self-reliance in science and technology, improving the original innovation ability is a fundamental measure and effective path. Patent-intensive enterprises master technology patents in key areas, and they pay more attention to original innovation in order to form sustainable competitive advantage. The essence of original innovation is the process of new knowledge production, which is inseparable from knowledge search activities. Effective knowledge search of original innovation can help patent-intensive enterprises to carry out knowledge creation activities of original innovation. Therefore, it is very important to clarify the mechanism of knowledge search on knowledge creation. At the beginning, based on the previous research on knowledge search, the research divides knowledge search of original innovation into forward-looking knowledge search and reactive knowledge search, and explores the influence and difference of knowledge search on the knowledge creation of original innovation, as well as the mediating effect of knowledge accumulation and the moderating effect of original innovation will. Thus, the research constructs the theoretical model of the mechanism of knowledge search of original innovation. Then, the research uses questionnaire method to obtain sample data, the subjects of the survey are patent-intensive enterprises, and conducts hypothesis testing and analysis based on questionnaire data. The research results show that the forward-looking knowledge search has a significant positive effect on the knowledge creation of original innovation, and there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between the reactive knowledge search on the knowledge creation of original innovation. Knowledge accumulation plays a partial mediating role in the effect of forward-looking knowledge search on the knowledge creation of original innovation, and knowledge accumulation plays a complete mediating role in the effect of reactive knowledge search on the knowledge creation of original innovation. The original innovation will can positively regulate the effect of forward-looking knowledge search on the knowledge creation of original innovation, and significantly regulate the inverted U-shaped relationship between reactive knowledge search and knowledge creation of original innovation. Finally, the research results provide a theoretical basis and practical reference for patent-intensive enterprises to realize the knowledge creation of original innovation and choose appropriate knowledge search strategies. In order to promote knowledge creation of original innovation, patent-intensive enterprises should further play the important role of knowledge search in the knowledge creation process of original innovation, and they should choose suitable knowledge search strategy for the knowledge creation of original innovation. Also, patent-intensive enterprises must attach importance to the transmission of knowledge accumulation between knowledge search and knowledge creation of original innovation, and improve the original innovation will to ensure the positive effect of knowledge search on the knowledge creation of original innovation.
