ABSTRACT
Building up an innovative ecosystem to enhance technology and knowledge supply capability is the essential connotation of industrial upgrading. The concept of innovation ecosystems emphasizes the diversification and self-organizing process of the innovation actors, which may better reflect developing features. Innovation ecosystems are concerned with how interrelated actors or players make innovation happen, and even how innovators perceive innovation policies. The special wire and cable enterprises in Wuwei County have aimed to be suppliers of key raw materials and components for high-end facilities through participating in the innovation alliance of strategic emerging industries. High-end production is just a facade of the industrial upgrading, while its substance lies in the construction of an enterprise-oriented open innovation ecosystem and the improvement of enterprise innovation capability. Since the mid-1990s, with the collective entrepreneurial efforts of migrant workers, a wire and cable industrial cluster with 268 enterprises gradually formed around Gaogou Town.
