ABSTRACT

The transition from a catching-up style economy to an innovation-driven economy poses a major challenge for China. This book examines the major issues at stake, outlines developments in crucial business fields and industries, and discusses the roles of top-down politics and bottom-up entrepreneurship. It focuses in particular on the institutional foundations of innovation, arguing that successful innovation relies on the favourable interplay of business, politics, and society, and that comprehensive institutional and organizational changes will be required in China in order for innovation to succeed. Overall, the book assesses how far China will be able to depart from the Western paradigm of successful innovation regimes and create its own innovation system with Chinese characteristics.

chapter 1|40 pages

Innovation depends

Between sustainable change and destructive over-turbulence; on the complex “deep structure” of innovation

chapter 2|21 pages

Technology, social beliefs, and national system of innovation policies

Reflections on China’s innovation policies after 2006

chapter 3|19 pages

China’s research and development sector

Progress and outlook

chapter 4|16 pages

Technological capabilities in China

Patterns of specialization toward a knowledge-intensive economy

chapter 7|20 pages

Moral capital and organizational legitimacy

Evidence from the private sector in China

chapter 9|21 pages

Innovation in the digital age

An opportunity for China’s catching up

chapter 10|19 pages

Realizing stretch goals via exploratory bricolage

The case of Chinese entrepreneurial firms

chapter 11|24 pages

Open innovation ecosystem and traditional industrial cluster upgrading

A case study on the special cable industry cluster in Gaogou Town, Anhui Province

chapter 12|25 pages

An “Iron Triangle” in Northeastern China

Revisit the new Northeast phenomenon and its innovation ecosystem