Research On The Integrated Innovation Ability Of China’s High-Speed Rail And Its Impact On Industrial Competitiveness

In 2008,China’s first high-speed railway,the Beijing-Tianjin Intercity Railway,was opened,marking the entry of China’s railway into the era of high-speed rail.In just over a decade,China’s high-speed railway construction and development have achieved significant achievements that have attracted worldwide attention.Not only has the world’s largest operating mileage,but also the high-speed railway equipment manufacturing industry has achieved a leap in industrial competitiveness from introducing technology to independent innovation.Since the reform and opening up,many industries in China have made efforts and attempts to introduce technology,digest,absorb,and innovate independently,but there are few cases of achieving industrial catch-up through technology introduction.In this context,this research takes China’s high-speed rail industry as a sample to study the industrial innovation capacity and its mechanism for the growth of industrial competitiveness,and explains the growth logic of latecomer industries to achieve independent innovation and achieve industrial catchup,which has strong theoretical and practical significance.It not only enriches the relevant theories of industrial innovation and industrial competitiveness evolution,but also provides valuable experience and useful reference for other latecomer industries in China to achieve industrial catch-up.This research studies the following two issues:(1)What is the process and mode of integration and innovation in China’s high-speed rail industry,and what innovative capabilities do they exhibit?(2)How can the integration and innovation capabilities of the high-speed rail industry promote the growth of industrial competitiveness? Only by anatomizing the evolution process of China’s high-speed rail industry innovation and the internal mechanism of its impact on industrial competitiveness can we clarify the logical relationship among many factors such as national strategy,market demand,industrial organization,innovation methods,and technological foundation in industrial innovation,and on this basis,comb out the experience that other industries can draw on.According to the research questions,the work of this research mainly includes three aspects: firstly,based on the results of data organization,a comparative analysis of the innovation evolution process of China and Japanese、Germany、French highspeed rail industry is conducted.Through a realistic analysis of the similarities and differences in the innovation evolution of the two countries’ high-speed rail industry,key influencing factors in the innovation evolution of the high-speed rail industry are extracted;Second,based on the research results of previous scholars and the refinement of key factors affecting the innovation evolution of high-speed rail industry in the previous research,the interview outline was designed,and first-hand information was collected through semi-structured interviews.Then,the Grounded theory method was used to build a theoretical model of China’s high-speed rail integration innovation capability,and the interaction between sub capabilities was analyzed through the double spiral model;Thirdly,based on the Michael Porter competitiveness model,the United Nations Industrial Development Organization’s industrial competitiveness model,and previous scholars’ research,an evaluation index for the competitiveness of China’s high-speed rail industry is constructed,and a driving model for the competitiveness of China’s highspeed rail industry is constructed by combining China’s high-speed rail integration innovation capability.The effectiveness of the model is verified through structural equations,and the mechanism of action between China’s high-speed rail integration innovation capability and industrial competitiveness is analyzed.This research believes that China’s high-speed rail industry promotes the development of industrial competitiveness in the way of "integration and innovation".Research contributions are mainly reflected in the following three aspects: first,the concept of high-speed rail integration and innovation capability is proposed and the theoretical framework is constructed by using the Grounded theory method.It is believed that high-speed rail integration and innovation capability consists of four dimensions: market awareness capability,organizational management capability,resource integration capability and technological innovation capability;Secondly,the evaluation index system for the competitiveness of China’s high-speed rail industry is proposed,which evaluates and explains the competitiveness and evolution of the highspeed rail industry from three dimensions: scale competitiveness,profitability competitiveness,and technological competitiveness;Thirdly,a high-speed rail industry competitiveness driven model was proposed to reveal the impact mechanism of China’s high-speed rail integration innovation capability and high-speed rail industry competitiveness.Based on the national high-speed rail strategy and the management system and technical background of China’s railway industry,the mechanism of the various elements of China’s high-speed rail integration innovation capability on industry competitiveness was studied.The effectiveness of the model was empirically tested through questionnaire surveys and structural equations,to provide a basis for future strategic decision-making.