Liqin Brouwers-Ren

Technological innovation progress in Central China: a survey to 42 firms

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to report a recent technological innovation investigation to the Chinese enterprises with different ownerships. The goal of this research is to discuss whether there are innovation mechanisms in place, and to test the influence of the innovation mechanisms and the government policies to the Chinese enterprises innovation performance.Design/methodology/approach – The investigation and analyses are based on a survey to the firms (n=42) from different sectors in central China, for which a research framework and analytical model of firm‐level innovation in China was developed.Findings – The paper finds that the innovation mechanisms in the Chinese firms are to a certain extent in place, and the market factor has become the driving force for the enterprises innovation. By using the pooled‐variance t‐test for comparing means, the authors further tested that innovation mechanisms and the government innovation policies have positive influences on the innovation performance...