Shisong Jiang

Does one size fit all? The governance mode and strategic position of cluster innovation platforms

Despite its significant role, governments encounter a policy dilemma how to intervene in the economy to promote industrial cluster upgrading while not foregoing market driven innovation. This paper focuses on government-supported innovation platforms within industrial clusters. Through a comparative case study in China, we find a general pattern among cluster characteristics, governance mode and strategic position of innovation platforms. The contributions of our paper are: 1) exploring a distinctive pattern of service innovation, ‘innovation through services’; 2) proposing a typology for innovation platforms; 3) enriching the knowledge-based theory of clusters by innovation practices in developing countries. Our results also imply that national and provincial policy for innovation platform should keep flexible because one size does not fit all and must be locally adapted. Finally, the co-evolution of the industrial cluster and innovation platform within the cluster is a promising direction for future research.

A dynamic match between business model and firm growth: The case of Chint group

Research on business model emerges as a promising area. This article aims at exploring a dynamic match between business model and firm growth. Through a longitudinal study of a Chinese private manufacturing firm with a history of more than twenty years, it is indicated that, when moving from initial stage to adjusting and then to expansion stage, the firm experiences a significant change along three dimensions of business model: value proposition, value creation, and value system integration. The contribution of this article is fourfold: understanding firm growth process from a perspective of business model; reconceptualizing business model; extending the scope where business model can be applied; uncovering the dynamics of business model.

Technology progress in the Chinese construction industry under the iron-fist of government

Government policies and actions in transitional economies have far-reaching consequences for technology progress. Many studies suggest the important role of governments in providing policies and finance to facilitate technology innovations. The Chinese government has often been seen to exemplify this. This article probes government actions in practice, the way it is conducted and the negative consequences for innovation. We focus on one of Chinas most important and successful sectors – construction. An analytical framework based on ‘complex systems industry’ is used and a causal map developed to examine the role of the Chinese government acting as client, regulator and administrator of industrial and professional bodies and their impact on innovation in the construction sector. This paper confirms that innovation is industry specific and social and economic context dependent. While recognising the powerful role of the Chinese government, it argues that in reality the ‘Chinese government’ is not a uniform entity, but rather consists of various entities acting in accordance with their varied vested interests at a specific time and under particular circumstances.

Ownership and visibility: a pattern of industrial technology catching-up in transition economies

We present a pattern of industrial technology catching-up in transition economies from perspective of ownership. The pattern indicates, State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) and Private-Owned Enterprises (POEs) play different roles in catching-up process. Specifically, SOEs play a more active role in importing foreign technology and innovation activities, while POEs are inclined to come to the fore in assimilation activities. We also point out that knowledge transfer between SOEs and POEs is key to catching-up. We contribute to extant literature by questioning previous work assuming that industrial technology catching-up players are homogeneous, thus increasing our understanding of unique catching-up path in transition economies.