Cooperation And Competition In China's High-speed Rail Innovation

Why China's high-speed rail technology can obtain independent intellectual property rights in a short time has been a vehement topic for scholars.There are two views on this topic.Some scholars believe that the cooperative innovation model is representative of the national system,while the others do not agree that government should intervene innovation.However,from the perspective of the author,both of two views are one-sided.In fact,China's high rail technology innovation is the result of a synergistic effect of both competitive and cooperative mechanism which will change over time.This dissertation is committed to find the reason why the cooperativecompetitive innovation model of China's high rail changed in different periods.Existing theories can be divided into three perspectives: market perspective,network perspective and state perspective.Based on the market perspective,the author emphasizes the influence of entrepreneur and market structure on innovation.This kind of theoretical perspective holds that entrepreneurs are driven by economic rationality.Economist's core insight was that innovation was entrepreneur's rational behavior for pursuit of profit.From the network perspective,National Innovation System Theory focused on the cooperative mechanism in the innovation network which organized by films and educational institutions.But this theory still believe that behaviors are driven by economic rationality,while cooperation and competition are only the means to achieve the goal.The theories of state perspective focus on the relationship between government and other innovators.In developmental state,strategy-directed development may be necessary where changing economic conditions necessitate rapid shifts in economic structure and external relations.The government intervenes in the economy directly through industrial policy which is based on planning rationality.However,three perspectives share the same theoretical hypothesis,namely,that is there is a kind of rationality.Both market perspective and network perspective believe that there is an economic rationality,while state perspective believe that there is a planning rationality.But from economic sociology perspective,rationality is socially constructed by institutions and cognition.Institutions shapes the social order for actors,and cognition is the carrier of conventions.It provides the schemas through which we make ongoing sense of conventions and through which we challenge them.Therefore,this essay will take China's high-speed rail Innovation as an example to analyze Chinese government-driven innovation model.The author introduce two variables that are institutions and cognition to analysis framework.It shows that different institutions and cognition construct different industrial policy paradigm which will affect the innovation model.From author's perspective,under different cognition frames and economic institutions,the government will establish different technology development policies,market-access policies and competition policies,which three constitute the industrial policy paradigm of China's high-speed rail innovation.The Ministry of Railways has established an innovative network using the power conferred by the centralization system,which encompasses both the competitive mechanism and the cooperative mechanism.The cooperative mechanism is that government integrates industrial resources to build the national innovation platform.The competitive mechanism is that government consciously creates oligopoly competitive market not only to maintain the vitality of innovation but also to prevent excessive competition.During three different innovation periods,Chinese government has succeeded in high-speed rail technology innovation under the guidance of technology development policies,market-access policies and competition policies.Firstly,set the technology development goals and choose the innovation paths through technology development policies.Secondly,define the rights and responsibilities of the actors through market access policies.Thirdly,build an oligopoly competitive market through competition policies.On one hand,the innovation resources and labors are integrated to create an innovation cooperative network by government plans.On the other hand,an oligopoly competitive market is built to create a competitive network for innovation.From the perspective of new institutionalism,China's high-speed rail technology innovation represents an important technological innovation model in China,that is,government-driven technological innovation model.In this model,government intervenes technology innovation directly through industrial policies which are constructed by cognition frame and institutions rather than planning rationality.China' high-speed rail technology innovation is the result of interaction of cooperative mechanism and competitive mechanism of government.However,it is important to note that this innovation model does not apply to all industries.It needs some certain conditions that are integral technological architecture and centralization institution.First,the innovation of integral architecture technology requires the cooperation of different actors.Second,the centralized system is more conducive to the government to implement industrial policies.Third,the centralization institution is conducive to the government to establish the industrial discourse right which is benefit to technology introduction pattern.All of these three aspects constitute the applicable conditions for government-driven innovation model.