| Companies embedded in innovation can search and use external knowledge on a global scale to increase innovation efficiency.The innovation network has become the key for companies and industries to enhance their innovation capabilities and global competitiveness.Although the regional economics and economic geography circles have made many researches on industrial innovation networks,they have little attention to the similarities and differences of innovation networks in different industrial sectors.However,there is lack of systematic research on the spatial characteristics of innovation networks,the structure of innovation networks,the internal mechanism,and the external innovation performance in different industries.And it is the main direction of this article.Different scholars have different cognitions on the relationship between innovation network and innovation performance.There are different understandings of the impact of the network structure variables on innovation such as the centrality,structural holes,relationship strength,and tri-unit closure.The fundamental reason for this difference is that the issue has not been studied from the perspective of knowledge production and transformation.In fact,knowledge is the outset of industrial technological innovation,and its heterogeneity determines the differences in innovation networks.In the research of innovation networks and knowledge interaction,the existing research results mostly use dichotomy to divide knowledge types and cyberspace scope.These scholars assert that tacit knowledge interacts on the local scale,and explicit knowledge interacts on a global scale,but ignores the interaction and transformation of explicit and tacit knowledge in the innovation process,ignores the difference in the degree of coding of different knowledge types.This article is guided by industry knowledge base theory of Asheim and focuses on two different types of knowledge-based industries in the manufacturing industry: analytic industries(based on scientific knowledge)and synthetic industries(based on engineering and technological knowledge).Taking the Chinese biomedical industry and environmental industry as examples,using the patent data of the two industries from 2004 to 2014 and the survey data of the China International Industry Fair,using Ucinet,Arcgis,Stata,R softwares and mixed regression models,system GMM methods,and negative two Regression,this article systematically discuss the similarities and differences of the knowledge base,spatial characteristics,development and evolution,impact factors and mechanism,and innovation performance between analytic industries and synthetic industries.The main conclusions of the paper are:(1)The scope of analytical and synthetic industrial innovation networks is different,and the localization characteristic of analytical industrial innovation network is distinct,while the cross-regional characteristic of synthetic industrial innovation network is significant.The newly created knowledge in analytical industries is innovative,complicated,and tacit.It requires a profound scientific foundation and a spirit of innovation and risk-taking.However,such knowledge is easily coded and easily disseminated through academic vehicles.The technical knowledge required for the synthetic industry is relatively simple,systematic,and has a high requirement for cooperative innovation,and has a high degree of dependence on market share and expansion behavior.Because the analytical and synthetic industries rely on different knowledge base,the innovation networks extended by the two are also quite different.From the perspective of group relations,analytical industries rely on innovation alliance of industry,universities,and research institutes.Their innovation networks are highly dependent on the cognitive proximity and trust between the entities,and the localized “small-world” characteristics are significant to ensure the exclusive enjoyment of innovation.The technology and competitive advantages brought by it can balance the operational risks brought about by largescale R&D investment,the tri-unit closure relationship is formed within the group,the relationship between groups is relatively closed,and the overall network presents a strong and sparse structure.The synthesis industry relies on the cooperation between upstream and downstream enterprises in the industrial chain,with many partners,large changes in cooperation relationships,and weaker network stability.The overall network presents a core-periphery structure.(2)The influence factors of the analytical and synthetic industrial innovation networks are different: centrality,structural holes,cooperation breadth,and cooperation depth have different effects on the innovation performance of the two.Analytic industrial innovation network is a strong connection sparse network,the centrality of the entity is not prominent,the role of the centrality in innovation is not significant;the enterprise generally has more R&D personnel and is closely related to the innovation partners such as universities and research institutes in geographical proximity.The companies that occupy more structural holes can search for more external knowledge and transform knowledge,and have better innovation performance,and the geographical proximity plays a significant role.Since trust and cognitive proximity are the preconditions for the cooperation of industry entities,collaboration depth rather than cooperation breadth promotes innovation.But the synthetic industry innovation network is the core-marginal structure,and the core positions are composed of strong corporate groups with a single and high cooperation intensity in the group,high degree of structural hole limitation;there is a negative correlation between centrality,structural holes,and innovation performance.In the process of industrial innovation,diverse knowledge is needed,and the cooperation breadth has a significant role in promoting innovation,and cooperation depth on the role of innovation is relatively insignificant.(3)The evolutionary process of analytical and synthetic industrial innovation networks is different,and network closure has different influence on the two at different stages of development.The analytical innovation network involves complex knowledge.Before the complex knowledge is coded,the closed network can reduce the risk of knowledge spillovers,ensure the revenue of the developers,and benefit the innovation;within the city,there is more cooperation between companies and universities,research institutes,but there are few interactions between enterprises;at the same time,analytical knowledge is easily coded,and it is easy to spread across distant distances by reading literature and patents,attending meetings,etc.With the perfection and maturity of innovation networks,the cooperation between excellent center cities have become increasingly close.Geographic proximity and cognitive proximity are all important for the cooperation of enterprises.From the perspective of evolution,the role of localized tri-unit closure relations in the innovation of the entities changes from “positive” to “negative”.For the synthetic innovation network,the tacit technological knowledge exchange is the basis of the company's cooperation.The geographical proximity and organizational proximity play an irreplaceable role.The enterprises in neighboring cities have frequent interactions of innovation,and the provincial and national cooperative innovation ratios is higher than analytical networks;from the perspective of evolution,closed networks have been detrimental to the comprehensive utilization of innovative resource organizations,knowledge dissemination,and market development from the beginning to the end.Closeness hinders the innovation.(4)Analytic and synthetic industrial innovation network optimization is different.For analytical industries,we should increase support for basic scientific research and major technological research projects at universities and research institutes of science and engineering,accelerate the integration of production and research within the city,establish cross-regional innovation relationships,and build efficient innovation alliance to enhance global knowledge production capabilities and core corporate competitiveness.For the synthetic industries,it should use its characteristics of low threshold of innovation,focus on promoting interaction and cooperation among enterprises based on extending the industrial chain,dislocation competition in neighboring regions,and win-win cooperation principles.In line with the guiding ideology of “Government to Build Platforms and Enterprises to Innovate”,we will accelerate the pace of integration of regional factor markets,provide the necessary prerequisites for economic development of late-developed cities to develop innovative economies,build innovative networks,and realize overtaking. |
PDF Full Text Request