While Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology is reorganizing human society disruptively, it also brings severe challenges to all aspects of society. In order to meet these challenges, Chinese scholars took the lead in proposing the concept and framework of Artificial Intelligence Social Experiments (AISE) in 2019, exploring the Chinese road of intelligent governance. AISE means introducing an experimental approach to society, where new technologies are placed in society to experiment to see their actual social impact. This is because that the disruptive nature of AI technology will induce a series of risks, but these risks are often difficult to predict and judge, therefore, artificial intelligence technology can be partially introduced in social scenarios, and its feasibility can be tested closely by monitoring its social impact.
As a social experiment, artificial intelligence has inherent advantages in preventing and controlling risks, but its implementation also has ethical issues that cannot be ignored. This is mainly due to the fact that AISE takes humans as the research object and examine the internal relationship between human and AI. Taking human as research objects requires that AI social experiments be conducted prudently, respectfully, and rationally, with comprehensive ethical review and evaluation to ensure minimal risks and optimal methods. Therefore, its ethical concerns are not only important but necessary.
The reason why AISE needs ethical concerns urgently stems from their ethical characteristics, especially the ethical characteristic of second-order and the unpredictability and uncertainty closely related to it. The fundamental feature of AISE is its ethical characteristic second-order. It is shown that one of the purposes of social experiments on AI is to address the ethical issues of AI through social experiments. However, at the same time, such experiments are controversial inherently in ethics which means there are ethical problems in these experiments when they are tried to solve ethical problems. The following characteristics are unpredictability and uncertainty. The former refers to the potential ethical hidden dangers of AISE that are sometimes difficult to judge in advance, and the latter indicates the fact that the ethical consequences of AISE are uncertain, and their solutions are difficult to predetermine. Another reason for ethical concerns about AISE originates from specific ethical issues raised by these characteristics, including privacy issues, issues of dirty hands and deception issues.
Based on this, our paper put forward an ethical framework for AISE, that is, the ethical norms that should be followed to carry out artificial intelligence social experiments, in order to deal with the potential ethical risks of AI social experiments. The basic principles of AISE are respect for autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence and justice, which is in the light of the principles of biomedical ethics explained by Beauchamp and Childress. Based on the demonstration of the criterion principle and generative logic of AISE ethics, this paper puts forward relevant suggestions for its ethical governance.
In conclusion, it is necessary to understand the ethical necessity of AISE correctly, and construct an ethical framework for AISE to perceive, evaluate and reduce the potential risks in the introduction of AI technology into society. This will provide solutions to bridge the gap between what and how in scientific and technological ethics governance, so as to explore the Chinese path of ethical governance of science and technology.
“The problem of many hands” of AI, increasing autonomy and learning ability, and “moral luck” in development and application of AI cause the moral responsibility dilemma of AI. The existing strategies are not perfect enough and can not be used to solve the practical problems well. The statistical results of AI accidents and the composition of AI research institutions show that enterprises play a very important role in accelerating the development of AI technology and industry landing, but also aggravate the ethical risks of AI. Therefore, from both an academic and a practical point of view, AI companies should not be exempt from moral responsibility. In addition, in the relevant laws and industry standards have not been updated or formulated in a timely manner, so soft incentives and punishment measures will play a complementary role in ethical regulation. To formulate specific regulatory measures on the moral level will be an effective way to guide enterprises to actively undertake moral responsibilities.
Professor Freeman is the world's master of innovation economics. 2021 is the centenary of Professor Freeman's birth. It is of profound historical and practical significance to review his ideological system and academic contributions. Based on the method of scientometrics, this paper studies Professor Freeman's academic thoughts and contributions. As the successor and developer of Schumpeter's economic innovation theory, Professor Freeman takes innovation economics research as the core of his academic thought system, and his academic theory has laid the foundation of the new Schumpeter school of economics. His academic thought is also deeply influenced by Professor Bernal. Professor Freeman's academic contributions can be summarized in the following four aspects :(1) Put forward the unique "technology-economy" long-wave theory; (2) Systematically explained the concept of national innovation system; (3) Created his own system of industrial innovation economics; (4) Establish Research Policy, a top journal in the fields of economics and management. Professor Freeman founded and led the Science and Technology Policy Research Unit (SPRU) and nurtured a team of innovation researchers. His academic influence is extensive and far-reaching, leaving precious spiritual wealth for the world's innovation thought research field, and deeply inspiring the construction of China's national innovation system. He emphasized that the effective combination of technology import and independent scientific research to form an innovation network with strategic focus, and this opinion has profound guiding significance for China to jump out of the predicament of "blockade on techniques" of European and American countries.
The national strategic system and national strategic capabilities are an organic whole. The integration of the strategic system is the process of integrating various interrelated national strategies to form an organic whole at the national level. The integration of strategic capabilities is the integration and efficiency of various interrelated economic and defense forces to form a comprehensive capability. To build an integrated national strategic system and capabilities is to organically unify national strategies to form a national strategic system with clear levels, optimized structure, coordinated promotion, and coordinated resonance. The military and civilian forces and resources are integrated into a national capability that integrates the military and civilians and enhances overall efficiency. Insufficient economic and national defense imbalance is an important aspect of the integrated national strategic system and capability contradiction. Regional (horizontal) and field (vertical) spatial and functional structures should be built to carry it, as well as the corresponding organizational structure to form a high-quality industry. system, high-level open system, high-standard ecological system, and high-efficiency governance system, and gradually realize the overall target form.
With the accelerated development of a new generation of information technology, how to promote the transformation and upgrading of the industrial structure, coordinate the government and market forces to effectively supply industrial policies, explore suitable policy implementation path, promote China's industry in the global value chain of high-end, build an advanced manufacturing industry with strong competitive cluster, achieve high quality development, become a key problem facing China's manufacturing industry. One of the major characteristics of China's economy is that both market and government are playing a role. The special institutional environment and the uncertainty of institutional environment brought by economic transformation affect the evolution and upgrading process of China's industrial clusters, which leads to a great difference between the development path of China's industrial clusters and that of the West.
Firstly, what roles do government behavior (visible hand) and market mechanism (invisible hand) play in different stages of manufacturing cluster evolution and upgrading? What is the mechanism? Secondly, how do industry associations promote the evolution and upgrading of manufacturing clusters? What is the mechanism? Finally, how does the competitiveness of industrial clusters evolve and upgrade under the promotion of multi-stakeholder? In this regard, institutional logic theory, as a link between macro-level institutional theory and micro-level actor's behavior, is a set of formal and informal rules that shape the cognition and behavior of actors in the organizational field. It has certain historical weight variability and is conducive to explaining the process mechanism of dynamic evolution in a long period.
Based on this, with the help of institutional logic theory and from the perspective of time, this paper takes the woolen weaving industry in Dalang, Dongguan as an example, and takes the government, cluster enterprises and industry associations involved in the evolution and upgrading of manufacturing clusters as the main body of interest, and discusses the multiple factors in different stages. The mechanism of institutional logic on the evolution and upgrading of manufacturing clusters opens the "black box" of the evolution and upgrading process of manufacturing clusters under multiple institutional logics, in order to provide theoretical reference for the evolution and upgrading mechanism of manufacturing clusters, and provide reference for government policy formulation .
The findings are as follows: Firstly, the evolution and upgrading of manufacturing cluster is an alternating process of gradual evolution and abrupt upgrading. In the stage of gradual evolution, cluster logic is dominated by market logic. In the abrupt upgrade stage, the cluster logic is dominated by government logic. Secondly, the conflict between the original government logic and market logic is the main driving force to upgrade the manufacturing cluster. Thirdly, with the development and expansion of cluster, the professional logic with industry associations as the main body tends to replace the government logic. Fourthly, the development of manufacturing cluster is based on the joint action of efficiency mechanism (dominated by market logic) and legitimacy mechanism (dominated by government logic), and the cooperative evolution and upgrading of various actors (government, industry association and cluster enterprises, etc.).
Based on the time window and the theory of institutional logic, this paper discusses the mechanism of local government, cluster enterprises and industry associations in the process of cluster evolution and upgrading, constructs the evolution framework of the dominant logic followed by different stages of cluster under the time dimension, and answers the question of how to improve the competitiveness of cluster. This paper adopts a single case study. Although the selected cases are representative to some extent and have unique advantages for theoretical construction, the universality of the research conclusion still needs to be cautious. In the future, the accuracy of the research conclusion can be tested through large sample statistics.
The role of artificial intelligence technology in the field of elderly care services is becoming more and more significant. At the present stage, the development strategies and policies of AI elderly care service in developed countries outside the region can be discussed from four aspects: development goals, mode classification, key contents and implementation mechanism. In terms of its content, it includes constructing a safe AI elderly care system, practicing the concept of comprehensive care services, focusing on solving ethical and legal dilemmas, and constantly improving the artificial intelligence literacy of citizens. In terms of its implementation mechanism, it includes the government's strong support for the development of intelligent elderly care, and the active participation of enterprises and industry associations. China should learn from the useful experience of foreign AI elderly care strategies, such as the establishment of the elderly as the center of AI elderly care service concept, the formation of diversified fund raising mechanism in the implementation of AI strategy. Specific improvement measures include: adopting smart elderly care strategic mode in line with China's reality, establishing a demand-oriented smart elderly care service supply system, improving the elder's ability to pay for smart elderly care service, and forming a government-led and multi-party participation in smart elderly care governance.
Both the international leading customers and domestic university-industry collaboration have important impact on the catch-up of latecomer firms. On one hand, cooperation with international leading customers will help latecomer firms to enhance market capability. The international leading customers can help latecomers to enter the global value chain in the form of OEM production to learn skill and process technology, but many latecomers would fall into the trap of long-term low value-added OEM after obtaining initial success in product processing, and it is difficult to carry out higher technological upgrading. On the other hand, university-industry collaboration will help latecomer firms improve their technological capability. The university-industry collaboration has always been an important national policy of the Chinese government to promote technological innovation, and many Chinese manufacturing firms have carried out various types of university-industry collaboration to improve their technological innovation capability. Through university-industry collaboration, latecomer firms can improve their absorptive capacity, so as better to identify, digest and absorb technological knowledge. However, in the process of practice, many university-industry collaboration have caused the problem of "marginalization of R&D" due to the separation of research activities from production and insufficient engineering capability, and there is a practical problem of relatively low efficiency in Chinese domestic university-industry collaboration. Therefore, connecting the international leading customers and improving the university-industry collaboration system simultaneously have become the core elements of catch-up successfully for latecomer firms. However, it is worth concern that there is currently a lack of relevant research linking the dynamics of both domains.
Longitudinal case study can show the dynamic process of phenomena changing over time, and reveal how the dynamic mechanism behind the phenomenon works. Through the method, this paper explores the detail process of how the international leading customers and university-industry collaboration coevolve in the process of catch-up of latecomer firms. Based on the principle of theoretical sampling, Ningbo Novel Optics Co., Ltd. was selected as the case study sample. First, Novel Optics has achieved a catch-up transformation from process technology to design technology. Second, both international leading customers and domestic university-industry collaboration play important role in the catch-up process. Novel Optics has carried out close cooperation with international leading customers and many domestic universities and institutes, which has greatly enhanced its technological innovation and market capabilities.
Through the longitudinal case analysis of Novel Optics from 1997 to 2021, this paper finds that the latecomer firms will realize the catch-up transformation from the process technology stage to the design technology stage, the connection between international leading customers and domestic university-industry collaboration should transform from echoing mechanism to synchronizing mechanism. In the process technology stage, the international leading customers direct the processing needs of mature products, so the knowledge characteristics of the technology are relatively low, the market demand is more certain, and the latecomer firms can connect the international leading customers with domestic university-industry collaboration through the echoing mechanism. The improvement of technology brings the improvement of product performance, latecomer firms can use the scale effect to further reduce product costs, and bring more value to the leading international customers. Subsequently, the market capability of latecomers will also increase. In the design technology stage, because the product is still in the development stage or even the research stage, both architecture design and component design have not yet been finalized, the knowledge characteristics of the technology and the uncertainty of market demand are high relatively, therefore, the latecomers need the synchronizing mechanism to connect the international leading customers with the domestic university-industry collaboration.
This paper introduces the perspective of coevolution, which enriches the catch-up theory of latecomer firms. Based on the context of Chinese latecomer firms, it proposes a sustained catch-up path for the coevolution between the international leading customers and domestic university-industry collaboration. The paper not only makes up for the traditional deficiency from the single perspective of the leading international firms or university-industry collaboration to examine the catch-up of latecomer firms, but also provides a new mechanism for technological catch-up in the context of Chinese latecomer firms. These conclusions have also important enlightenment for the catch-up practice of latecomer firms and the self-reliance and self-improvement of Chinese science and technology.
National research institutes are the important part of national innovation system, which are more strategic, pioneering, and global. National research institutes are not only the source of enterprise technological innovation, but also the important driving force to promote technology commercialization. National research institutes undertake basic research and key core technologies related to the country’s strategic needs, and shoulder the important mission of promoting technology commercialization. Technology commercialization is the core of scientific & technological management, which is the key link of applying scientific research achievements to social and economic development and creating economic value. In addition, technology commercialization can expand market, create products, and meet the needs of the people. Technology commercialization has always been a global problem. Promoting the successful transformation of a new product or technology is an urgent issue which needs to consider. Because of the special status, national research institutes play the important role in the industrialization and commercialization of scientific research achievements. Therefore, under the current situation, how national research institutes promote technology commercialization has become an important issue that needs to be solved urgently.
Nowadays, national research institutes play an increasingly important role in promoting technology commercialization. Scholars have deeply discussed many aspects of technology commercialization, such as influential factors, incentive mechanism, intellectual property rights, and legal policies. The existing research on national research institutes mainly focuses on governance reform, successful practice, operation mechanism, and interest subjects. However, these studies mainly focus on technology commercialization between universities and enterprises, thus ignoring the important role of national research institutes in technology commercialization. There is thus no specific link between technology commercialization and national research institutes. The existing research mainly focuses on qualitative description, but empirical discussions are insufficient. Previous studies have brought national research institutes and technology commercialization into the analysis framework. In general, the existing research has not been able to answer the important question of how national research institutes promote technology commercialization in the context of China.
Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering (NIMTE) closely combines with the international trend of science and technology development and national innovation-driven development needs, which forms a scientific layout of material application chain, scientific research and technology chain, talent training, and introduction chain. The NIMTE has provided strong scientific and technological support for the development of manufacturing industry and material industry in Ningbo city, Zhejiang Province, and even the Yangtze River Delta region, and has provided significant support for the national strategic scientific and technological force. This study takes the NIMTE as the study object, and deeply explores important paths for national research institutes to promote technology commercialization. The research results show that: integrating the multiple superior resources around the country, market, and innovation needs; creating a sound institutional ecosystem that is fair, just, open, and shared by all; building a multilevel and multi-angle three-dimensional cooperative network; breaking through the whole value chain transformation channel of “research-results-product-market-industrial” competitive advantages; focusing on technology readiness level to customize the transformation mode of technology commercialization; and constructing a multi-stakeholder community of government, industry, universities, institutes, and society are important paths for national research institutes to promote technology commercialization.
The main theoretical contributions of this study are as follows: First, the existing research ignores the important role of national research institutes in technology commercialization. This study deeply discusses important paths for national research institutes to promote technology commercialization, thus enriching the relevant research on technology commercialization. Second, the current study has not yet incorporated national research institutes and technology commercialization into a unified analytical framework. This study deeply explores the key paths to promote technology commercialization in national research institutes and puts forward the corresponding theoretical propositions, thereby making up for the deficiency of relevant research in national research institutes to a certain extent.
The main practical implications of this study are as follows: First, national research institutes should closely link the needs of the country with the needs of the market, promote the construction of a multilevel and multi-angle three-dimensional cooperative network, and gather and integrate innovative resources. Second, national research institutes should innovate the transformation mechanism of technology commercialization, promote the formation of a sound institutional ecosystem that is fair, just, open, and shared by all, and fully stimulate the enthusiasm and motivation of researchers. Third, national research institutes should accelerate to break through the whole value chain transformation channel, build a multi-stakeholder community of government, industry, universities, institutes, and society, and choose the suitable transformation mode based on the technology readiness level. Besides, this study enriches previous research on technology commercialization and national research institutes, and has directive significance to the practice of promoting technology commercialization in national research institutes.
Empowering scientific researchers the ownership or long-term use right of job-related technological achievements to implement property right incentive plays an important role in enhancing the innovation and entrepreneurship motivation of researchers and improving the transformation efficiency of technological achievements. However, the transformation of technological achievements after empowerment still faces many obstacles, which leads the enthusiasm of researchers and the transformation efficiency of technological achievements is still not high. Based on the reviewing the current situation of the implementation of the empowerment policy on job-related technological achievements, this paper analyzes the policy and transfer difficulties faced by the transformation of job-related technological achievements of scientific researchers after empowerment.
It is found that scientific researchers still face the following problems after the implementation of the empowerment policy on job-related technological achievements. First, the top-level design conflict of the policy system. Due to the attribute of state-owned assets of job-related technological achievements, there are policy conflicts in terms of property right ownership, value evaluation and so on. At the same time, the policy system of technological achievement transformation has the problem of poor convergence between top-level design and subdivision policies, which directly affects the effectiveness of policy implementation. Second, cumbersome transfer and transformation approval procedures. Excessive approval procedures and long approval process of state-owned asset management hinder the technological achievement transformation; Third, Job-related technological achievements have the problems of high evaluation complexity, poor evaluation quality and high evaluation cost, scientific researchers' dual "risk anxiety" about the loss of state-owned assets and the occupation of state-owned assets. Fourth, difficulty of realizing transformation income. As it is difficult to evaluate the value of scientific and technological achievement, coupled with the constraints of maintaining and increasing the value of state-owned assets, scientific researchers have practical difficulties and concerns about "difficult to cash" and "afraid of accountability" for the benefits due to the achievements transformation. Fifth, insufficient motivation for achievement transformation. In the process of implementing the pilot policy, the interests of scientific researchers may be overemphasized, while the interests of achievement transformation institutions and talents in the marketization stage of scientific and technological achievements transformation may be ignored.
Based on this, this paper puts forward some countermeasures and suggestions. First, strengthen the policy coordination mechanism. By optimizing the top-level design of science and technology policies to enhance policy synergies, perfecting the smooth connection of subject policies and supporting policies, and optimize the communication mechanism and coordination mechanism between relevant management departments of science and technology policies. Second, simplify the process of confirming the right of job-related technological achievements. Optimizing State Property Supervision and improving the independent right of universities and research institutes to transform achievements. Third, perfecting the evaluation and pricing mechanism of technological achievements. Optimizing the evaluation system of scientific and technological achievements, establishing the evaluation model of combining qualitative and quantitative analysis which is more in line with the growth law of scientific and technological achievements market, promoting the marketization of scientific and technological achievements evaluation, and strengthening capacity-building for assessment professionals. Fourth, improving the income guarantee mechanism. Clear the ownership share and income share of job-related technological achievements held by scientific researchers, and establish evaluation system related to the technological achievement transformation in R&D institutions, universities and state-owned enterprises to ensure the implementation of scientific researcher income. Fifth, improving the income distribution proportion of achievement transformation institutions and talents. Promote support willingness and service motivation of transformation institutions and talents by increasing the income distribution ratio.
In the context of the digital economy, improving technology capabilities can help new ventures create superior operational performance. For example, new ventures can identify and exploit new technology trajectories by improving their technological capabilities to seize valuable and scarce technological opportunities, and also have the ability to build certain technological barriers and win innate advantages, thereby enhancing their operational performance. Core technology capabilities are usually not easily imitated and are scarce capabilities that reflect the characteristics of the enterprise itself. However, there are still some limitations in the existing studies on technological capabilities. First, the existing studies mainly focus on large enterprises, and there is a lack of empirical studies on new ventures. The existing studies generally agree on the important role of technological capabilities for enterprise innovation performance, but few studies focus on how technological capabilities can empower the operational performance of enterprises. Second, digital technologies have overturned the traditional enterprise value creation methods and made it possible to establish digital business model innovation. However, few studies have explored the impact of technological capabilities on the operational performance of new ventures from the perspective of digital business model innovation. Third, the success or failure of a company depends mostly on its ability to seize and act on opportunities. Compared with large firms, new ventures are more sensitive to the external environment, but existing studies have paid less attention to this issue.
Therefore, this study constructs a theoretical model of the relationship between technological capability, digital business model innovation, environmental dynamism, and operational performance of new ventures based on dynamic capability theory. Through the empirical analysis of 436 new ventures' data, the results show that: technological capability has a significant effect on digital business model innovation and new ventures' operational performance; digital business model innovation positively affects new ventures' operational performance; digital business model innovation is a key path for technological capability to be transformed into new ventures' operational performance; environmental dynamism enhances the influence of technological capability on digital business model innovation of enterprises , the higher the environmental dynamism, the stronger the impact of technological capability on digital business model innovation.
The findings of this study have the following theoretical contributions. First, this study explores the driving mechanism of the operational performance of new ventures based on technological capability by taking a dynamic capability perspective, which enriches the study of the paths to improve the operational performance of new ventures. Second, this study provides an in-depth interpretation of the transmission role of digital business model innovation in the relationship between technological capabilities and the operational performance of new ventures from a new perspective of digital business model innovation. The business environment is influenced by digital technology, and the behavioral characteristics, product functions and production processes of enterprises are changing. Analyzing these changes from the perspective of enterprise operations, enhancing efficiency and creating multi-dimensional value with the help of technological capabilities, and cultivating digital business model innovation capabilities will become a new paradigm for enterprise operation and management capabilities. Third, this study further introduces the variable of environmental dynamics to explore the moderating role of environmental dynamics between technological capabilities and digital business model innovation, which helps to further delineate the boundary conditions that influence enterprises to conduct digital business model innovation, in order to further clarify the mechanism of the influence of enterprises' technological capabilities on digital business model innovation.
This study focuses on exploring the intrinsic driving process of technological capabilities to achieve firm operational performance through digital business model innovation, and the findings help to enrich and expand the theory of dynamic capabilities and provide useful guidance for entrepreneurs to achieve superior operational performance by enhancing technological capabilities in the digital economy. However, the study has some limitations that are considered to be addressed in future research. First, due to the limitation of collecting samples, this study only investigated relatively typical first-tier cities, and future studies can expand the scope of the research to increase the sample generalizability. Second, this study obtained data on operational performance outcome variables from the 436 new ventures surveyed, but the questionnaire measures were based on management's self-reports. firm operational performance. Third, this study empirically tested the mediating role of digital business model innovation, and future research methods such as rooted theory and case studies could be used to explore the digital business model perspective of embedding digital technologies to create multidimensional value capture to provide more insightful findings.
Tracing and exploring how scientific research can effectively promote technological innovation is an important issue in the field of innovation management and policy research. Considering the important strategic position of the instrument industry and its close linkage with science, this paper investigates the heterogeneous impacts of the different properties of scientific knowledge on performance of science-based innovation in the instrument industry. It does so by analyzing granted patents data in the field of measurement in the US Patent and Trademark Office for the period from 2005 to 2019 and their citations data to scientific publications using negative binomial regression. The properties of scientific knowledge embedded in science-based innovation are measured in four dimensions, that is, degree of scientific linkage, quality of scientific knowledge, diversity of scientific knowledge sources, and spillover cycle of scientific research.
This paper contributes to understand the process of "science-based innovation" and enrich the relevant empirical evidence on the impacts of scientific knowledge on technological innovation. The main findings are as follows. Empirical analysis reveals an inverted U-shaped interaction between scientific knowledge and technological innovation. More specifically, both degree of science linkage and science quality have an inverted U-shaped effect on patent quality, measured by the number of citations. When the scientific quality exceeds a certain threshold, the number of forward citations of patents decreases. The increase in the quantity and quality of scientific knowledge increases the complexity of patents and thus may limit their proliferation. This finding indicates that factors such as industry characteristics, knowledge background complexity, stage of development of science and technology influence the interactive relationship between the development of technology and science. Instrument innovation, characterized with user innovation that are mainly researchers and academic professionals, are closely related to development of scientific knowledge and present a bidirectional causality relationship, that is, the development of instrument technology may drive the advance of scientific research.
The technological innovation of instruments significantly relies on more recent scientific knowledge than old scientific knowledge, implying that the updated scientific knowledge is important for latecomer countries to catch up in development of instrumental technology. The diversity of knowledge sources has a negative impact on patent quality, while the consistency of patent holders and authors of their cited scientific publications significantly promotes patent quality.
Meanwhile, instrument innovation shows a high degree of knowledge-technology agglomeration at the regional level, indicating that the geographical boundary of the scientific knowledge significantly influence the output of high-quality patents. Domestic-produced scientific knowledge and scientific knowledge generated in developed economies are more important for technological innovation of instrument.
These findings have two policy implications on identifying the technological development direction with innovation potential. On the one hand, it provides policy implications for the layout and catch-up strategy of indigenous innovation instrument industry resulting from updated scientific research in China and other late-comer economies; On the other hand, it helps to draw up effective measures for developing the catch-up of key and core technology innovation in China.
The deep integration of virtual reality and social economy will bring great changes and far-reaching impacts to the existing technological paradigm, industrial structure and social life. The high resource dependence of the virtual reality industry determines the importance of the industry’s innovation ecosystem. However, the innovation ecosystem of this industry is still in its infancy, lacking perfect rules and systems to support the evolution and operation of its innovation ecosystem. Therefore, it is necessary to study the construction mode and coordination mechanism of the innovation ecosystem of the virtual reality industry according to the current situation of the innovation ecosystem. For the innovation ecosystem in the embryonic stage, it is necessary to build the core part of the innovation ecosystem, and then expand it in a “circular” manner. Therefore, in addition to contract governance, the construction modes and coordination mechanisms of innovation ecosystems of different types of focal firms will also be different. At present, less research divides innovation ecosystems into different types and conducts more specific research.
This study uses social network analysis to build an alliance network in the virtual reality industry, and dig out focus firms and different types of innovation ecosystems from it, and then This research uses the horizontal exploratory multi-case analysis method to summarize the innovation ecosystem construction modes of the virtual reality industry focusing on different types of enterprises firms and the matching coordination. The research found that: there are mainly three types of innovation ecosystems in the virtual reality industry, which are technology-oriented innovation ecosystems, product-oriented innovation ecosystems and integrated innovation ecosystems respectively. the The technology-oriented innovation ecosystem mainly adopts the cross mechanism of incentives and ecological chain expansion; the product-oriented innovation ecosystem mainly adopts the cross mechanism of partner selection, feedback and flexibility driving; the integrated innovation ecosystem mainly adopts the cross mechanism of incentives, constraints and modules; the three types of innovation ecosystems complement each other and jointly support and drive the scale and diversification of the virtual reality industry. This paper not only helps to deepen the theoretical research of innovation ecosystem, but also has positive guiding significance for the construction and coordination of innovation ecosystem in the virtual reality industry.
The main management implications are as follows: first, for the focus firm, when the innovation subject as the focus firm builds the innovation ecosystem, it can choose the matching coordination mechanism combination according to its own role and ecological position. This study provides theoretical reference for it; Second, for partner firms, when partner firms choose to participate in innovation ecosystems with different construction modes, they need to weigh the utility of different types of innovation ecosystems and the relationship between multi-dimensional innovation entities according to their own actual conditions, so as to realize the realization of both the system and the firm. The third is from the perspective of the system as a whole, to provide a systematic combination of coordination mechanisms for the innovation ecosystem of different construction modes of the virtual reality industry, and to provide theoretical guidance for the evolution direction of the innovation ecosystem in its embryonic stage.
Frontier research focuses on the impact of informatization on innovation efficiency. With the development of digital technology, few studies have investigated the role of digital technology on innovation efficiency, nor have they paid attention to the test of its mechanism of action and whether there is heterogeneity in the effect. Based on this, this paper uses panel data of 30 regions in China from 2007 to 2020 to test the impact of digital technology on innovation efficiency and its mechanism, and further investigate the heterogeneous impact of different government attention, different R&D intensity and different geographical locations. Research findings: first, on the whole, digital technology can significantly improve the efficiency of regional innovation. This conclusion is still valid after the robustness test and instrumental variable regression. Second, the test of the mechanism of digital technology on innovation efficiency shows that digital technology improves regional innovation efficiency through human capital accumulation, knowledge spillover and optimization of innovation factor allocation. Third, further analysis shows that there is heterogeneity in the impact of digital technology on regional innovation efficiency. In areas with high government attention, high R&D intensity and geographical advantages, the promotion of digital technology on innovation efficiency is more obvious.
Boundary-spanning innovation has become an important way of technological innovation under digitalization. This paper takes 470 groups of listed manufacturing enterprises as the research objects to reveal the differentiated boundary-spanning technological innovation(BSTI) behaviors interacting logic under different transboundary contexts. Firstly, based on the way of intervention and the focus point, NCA method is adopted to determine the necessary behaviors of BSTI -- legitimacy building, knowledge development, market mining and relationship construction, to provide effective decision support for the selection of behavioral activities of manufacturing enterprises promoting boundary-spanning technological innovation. Secondly, based on the combination of breadth and depth of boundary-spanning technology innovation, the contexts are divided into preliminary, professional, multivariate and convergent four categories. Then, entropy weight method, NK model and case analysis method are used to determine the leading behavior and behavior orders under different contexts of manufacturing enterprises’ transboundary breadth and depth. The results show that the optimal action order of manufacturing enterprises in the four contexts are as follows: knowledge development →market mining →legitimacy building→relationship construction, legitimacy building →knowledge development →relationship construction→market mining, market mining→relationship construction→knowledge development→legitimacy building, relationship construction→legitimacy building→market mining →knowledge development. Thirdly, compare and analyze the overall logic and sub logic adjusting contents with different transboundary contexts. It is found that in the primary transboundary context, the manufacturing enterprises’ overall logic is reflected in the behavior intervention mode from direct to indirect, and sub logic focuses from the inside to the outside. Professional manufacturing enterprises should carry out BSTI effectively based on the overall logic of focus point from the inside to the outside and the sub logic of intervention mode from indirect to direct. In the multivariate transboundary context, the manufacturing enterprises’ overall logic is the focus from the outside to the inside, and the sub logic is the intervention mode from the direct to the indirect. In the convergent transboundary context, the manufacturing enterprises’ overall logic is the intervention mode from indirect to direct, and the sub logic is the focus point from outside to inside. The transboundary depth and breadth emphasize behavioral intervention mode and focus point shift respectively. The uniqueness and difference of acting mechanism of different transboundary contexts can improve the accuracy and scientificity of transboundary cognition, and provide effective theory and decision support for manufacturing enterprises to determine key behavioral activities and formulate reasonable undertaking plans according to the matching transboundary context. Finally, the path transformation logic of equilibrium and disequilibrium under the change of transboundary contexts is revealed. The results show that balanced type realizes transboundary transformation through the transition and upgrading of knowledge development, while the realizing of transboundary transformation “from professional to multivariate” or “from multivariate to professional” are depend on the leaps of legitimacy building or market mining respectively. The manufacturing enterprises take the relationship construction as the transition point of “equilibrium to disequilibrium” to effectively realize the transformation; and then adjust the follow-up behaviors appropriately according to the order logic of BSTI behavior in different contexts, to accelerate the transformation of innovation path. The results provide an effective theoretical basis for the dynamic adjustment of innovation behaviors and their orders of manufacturing enterprises based on the different transboundary contexts.
The marketization of China's economy is constantly improving. However, the principal-agent problem of state-owned enterprises is serious under the previous assessment and incentive mechanism. In 2013, the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China reaffirmed the importance of promoting mixed ownership reform, hoping to solve the problems of "absence of owner" and "principal-agent" by taking advantage of the reform of the governance structure. In addition, in order to cope with the challenges posed by the downturn in the international economic cycle and increased competition in the international market, China urgently needs to cultivate "going out" state-owned enterprises with international competitiveness, actively respond to the mixed ownership reform policy and make use of the comparative advantages of the professional capability of institutional investors and the international experience of foreign shareholders, so as to encourage them to foster new drivers of sustainable development in a more open environment.
However, few studies have focused on the influence mechanism of mixed ownership reform on innovation performance of OFDI state-owned enterprises from the perspective of "reverse technology spillover". Therefore, this study divides the process of reverse technology spillover into two stages. The first stage is to promote OFDI of state-owned enterprises in the domestic environment (Out Stage), and the second stage is the reverse technology spillover stage of state-owned enterprises in the foreign environment (In Stage). Taking the state-owned listed manufacturing firms from Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges as samples, based on a two-stage theoretical model from the perspective of reverse technology spillover, this paper studies the impact of the mixed ownership reform on innovation performance of OFDI state-owned enterprises mainly by empirical tests of instrumental variable method and moderated mediation effects.
The results show that shareholder diversity introduced by non-state-owned shareholders has a significant positive impact on innovation performance of State-owned enterprises. And diversity of appointed directors introduced by institutional investors and foreign capital plays a partial mediating role between shareholder diversity and innovation performance. This mediating effect is positively moderated by the choice of overseas M&A and enterprises’ absorptive capacity. The results of this study not only enrich and expand the influence path and mechanism of mixed ownership reform on reverse technology spillover of state-owned enterprises theoretically, but also provide relevant enlightenment in management practice for the reform of governance structure and improvement of innovation level of state-owned enterprises.
Based on the research conclusions, we put forward three enlightening countermeasures that include: firstly, it is important to strengthen the complementary advantages and supervision and restriction of state-owned and non-state-owned equity. State-owned enterprises need to introduce institutional investors, foreign capital and other non-state-owned shareholders to reform, promote the depth of integration and effective supervision and restriction in their governance structure, and give play to the comparative advantages of institutional investors and foreign shareholders in terms of innovation motivation and international experience. Secondly, state-owned enterprises should deepen the synergistic effect of diversity of appointed directors introduced by institutional investors and foreign capital. On the basis of promoting the reform of equity diversity with the participation of institutional investors and foreign capital, state-owned enterprises need to optimize the high-level governance structure and improve the quality of investment decisions through the heterogeneous and complementary board members appointed by institutional investors and foreign shareholders. At last, state-owned enterprises should take advantage of the positive effects of entry mode optimization and absorption capacity development. State-owned enterprises can focus on the diversification and flexibility of the choice of entry mode, so as to play a positive role in flexible transfer of property rights and technology spillover of partners in overseas M&A mode. In addition, while upgrading the development power of extroverted innovation, state-owned enterprises can strengthen the recruitment and training of R&D personnel worldwide, promote the development and utilization of international high-level human capital and intellectual capital, and constantly strengthen the positive effect of governance structure optimization and absorption capacity improvement on reverse technology spillover.
