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It is widely accepted that enterprises obtaining academic discoveries through R&D collaboration improve their innovation performance. However, it is not necessarily true in emerging economies, such as China and post-socialist countries in Europe. The purpose of this paper is to fill the gap by investigating how R&D collaboration between industry and academia (i.e. universities and research institutes) affects the industrial innovation performance; and whether and how intermediaries moderate their relationships.

This paper constructs the research model according to the knowledge production function, and the pooled ordinary least square regression is used to verify our hypotheses.

Evidence from a sample of Chinese industrial enterprises in thirty provinces spanning from 2009 to 2014 suggests that R&D collaboration with research institutes (CWR) is positively related to innovation output, while R&D collaboration with universities (CWU) exerts negative effect on innovation output measured by sales revenue of new product (NPSR). The significant moderating role of technology transfer institutions is confirmed in the negative relationship between CWU and NPSR.

This paper empirically examines the moderating role of intermediary organisations in academia–industry cooperation and industrial innovation, and has practical implications for the government to formulate policies to improve the quality and effectiveness of cooperation between academic and industrial sectors. These results vary in inland and coastal areas, which suggest the policy makers to formulate policies according to local conditions not only in China but also in other countries, like European countries.

Although many scholars have found that exploration and exploitation innovation have significantly positive effects on firm performance, it remains to be resolved whether the relationship between the two is still established at different stages of enterprise development and in different competitive contexts. This paper aims to clarify the effect of exploration/exploitation innovation on firm performance in start-ups, and in particular, the mediation role of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and the moderation role of competitive intensity are tested to explore their disturbing effects on above relationship.

The authors construct a theoretical framework to analyze and verify the relationship between innovation, EO and firm performance. The hypotheses of this paper are put forward by theoretical inference. In addition to test the hypotheses, 143 questionnaires are collected from technology-oriented start-ups in Hefei National University Science Park.

The empirical results show that consistent with previous findings, exploration innovation and exploitation innovation both have positive impact on firm performance; meanwhile, the EO partially mediates the relationship between both innovations and firm performance. What cannot be ignored is that the competition intensity plays a moderation role between EO and firm performance.

The findings reveal that the impact of innovation activities on corporate performance has been disrupted by EO and competition intensity in start-ups. The work of this paper deepens the understanding of the relationship between innovation, EO, external environment and firm performance, which is of guiding significance to the entrepreneurship management of emerging economies.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationships between exploratory/exploitative innovation and employee creativity in the Chinese context and how these two relationships can be moderated by an important cultural dimension – collectivism.

A theoretical framework was developed to explore the relationships between exploratory/exploitative innovation, employee creativity and collectivism. Data were collected by sending out surveys to managers and employees in various industries in mainland China. Hypotheses were tested using hierarchical regressions.

The results show that both exploratory innovation and exploitative innovation are positively related to employee creativity. Furthermore, collectivism negatively moderates the effects of both types of innovation on employee creativity, despite its positive main effect.

This study explores the relationship between organizational innovation and individual employee creativity in the Chinese context. This paper empirically analyzes the moderating effect of collectivism in the relationship between organizational innovation and employee creativity. It also indicates the factors inherent in Chinese culture that influence innovation and gives explanations from education, subordinate relation, etc.

This paper attempts to use agglomeration theory and ecological theory to explore how geographic agglomeration affects the graduation performance of incubator community. The authors argue that increasing the incubator community density can improve the opportunities for mutualism and learning among incubators. However, as the competition intensifies, the above positive relationship will weaken when the incubator density exceeds a certain level.

The authors use a unique panel dataset of 438 National Technology Business Incubators (NTBIs) in China spanning from 2008 to 2012. Since each NTBIs contains multiple observations for different years, these observations that belong to a cross-section are not completely independent of each other; therefore, the regression using ordinary least squares method underestimates the standard deviations of the variables. To solve this problem, the authors regress this cluster panel data using the Newey–West robust variance estimator.

The empirical results show that incubator community density is conducive to promoting incubation performance, while the positive relationship between the incubator community density and incubation performance gradually weakens as the population density of incubators surpasses a certain level. Further, the authors examine how incubator assistance (technical assistance and business assistance) moderates the relationship between incubator density and incubation performance. The results indicate that this positive relationship is stronger when more business assistance is provided by incubator managers, while the moderating role of technical assistance is not supported.

This paper enriches the research on the relationship between incubator community density and graduation performance from the perspective of incubator assistance which helps start-ups to understand, absorb and transform external knowledge and resources, thereby promoting their growth.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on how the three elements of paternalistic leadership – authoritarianism, benevolence and moral leadership – affect organizational innovation – both explorative and exploitative innovation – in Chinese enterprises. It also examines the moderating effect of environmental dynamism on the relationship between paternalistic leadership and organizational innovation.

Data on 190 superior–subordinate dyads are collected using questionnaire surveys. The supervisors are recruited from the MBA program in a famous university in the city of Hefei, China, who are also asked to distribute subordinate questionnaires to their subordinates. The hierarchical regression analysis is conducted to test the hypotheses by using SPSS 22.0.

The analysis of 190 superior–subordinate dyads shows that benevolent and authoritarian leadership is positively related to exploratory innovation, while moral leadership has no significant impact on exploratory innovation. The results also reveal that all three elements of paternalistic leadership is, in general, positively correlated with exploitative innovation. Furthermore, environmental dynamism moderates the relationship between paternalistic leadership and innovation. In a dynamic environment, moral leadership has a stronger positive effect on innovation, but only on exploratory innovation; whereas authoritarian leadership exerts more detrimental effects on both exploratory and exploitative innovation.

The current work contributes to understanding the relationship between paternalistic leadership and innovation in the Chinese cultural context by examining the effects of the three elements of paternalistic leadership separately and by showing how these effects can be moderated by environmental dynamism.

Based on the density dependence theory, this paper attempts to explore how two types of interdependence among firms located in the same national high-tech zones (NHTZs) – mutualism and competition – affect entrepreneurship in the NHTZs. The authors suggest that increasing firm density can help enhance legitimacy and form mutual networks. However, as the competition becomes fierce, the above positive relationship will weaken when the firm density exceeds a certain level. In addition, the authors are interested in whether the age of NHTZs would affect their sensitivity to legitimacy and competition and whether firm density affects entrepreneurship.

This article formulates two hypotheses from the theoretical deduction. The hypotheses are examined using the ordinary least squares (OLS) regression with a unique, unbalanced panel dataset of Chinese NHTZs spanning from 2014 to 2021. Considering potential endogeneity risk among the variables, the authors attempt to lag variables and ultimately find the results are still robust.

Drawing upon the density dependence theory, the empirical results show firm density is conducive to promoting entrepreneurship, while the positive relationship between community density and NHTZs' entrepreneurship gradually weakens as the firm density surpasses a certain level. The dynamics between mutualism and competition have different impacts on NHTZs' entrepreneurship. In addition, the results demonstrate that the linkage between firm interdependence and entrepreneurship is stronger for younger NHTZs. Firm density has an impact on entrepreneurship through legitimacy and excessive competition effects.

On the one hand, the research period of this paper is 2014–2021, as the China Torch Statistical Yearbook only started to publish operating revenues in 2014, so the data period of this paper is relatively short. More research can be done in the future when more data is disclosed. On the other hand, the qualitative analysis cannot be conducted because of the limited data and materials. In future research, the qualitative analysis of entrepreneurial activities in NHTZs, such as questionnaires or case studies, needs to be supplemented, which will be an interesting direction.

Most existing research has not distinguished the differences between NHTZs (Wang et al., 2019), especially the differences in legitimacy and access to resources caused by the age of NHTZs. This article considers the heterogeneity between NHTZs, which helps to provide theoretical and practical evidence for a transition economy like China to make trade-off decisions on balancing absorbing new entrants with promoting the efficient allocation of resources based on the density and age of NHTZs.

Drawing upon density dependency theory, this paper enriches the literature on agglomeration and entrepreneurship with a new perspective and extends the study to NHTZs.

First, this paper provides new evidence on how agglomeration affects entrepreneurship from an ecological perspective with the help of mutualism and competition interdependence. Most studies have explored the role of agglomeration in entrepreneurship, focussing on social networks, knowledge spillovers or resource endowments (Acs et al., 2013; Capozza et al., 2018; Yu, 2020). Drawing upon density dependency theory, this paper enriches the literature on agglomeration and entrepreneurship with a new perspective and extends the study to NHTZs. Second, the emphasis of science parks has been primarily on qualitative or case studies (Salvador et al., 2013; Guo and Verdini, 2015; Xie et al., 2018). We have diversified the quantitative research between agglomeration and entrepreneurship by using panel data from Chinese NHTZs from 2014 to 2021. Third, most existing research has not distinguished the differences between NHTZs (Wang et al., 2019), especially the differences in legitimacy and access to resources caused by the age of NHTZs. This article considers the heterogeneity between NHTZs, which helps to provide theoretical and practical evidence for a transition economy like China to make trade-off decisions on balancing absorbing new entrants with promoting the efficient allocation of resources based on the density and age of NHTZs. Finally, this paper meticulously investigates the profound influence and underlying mechanisms of firm density within NHTZs on entrepreneurship. It discerns two distinct mechanisms at play: the legitimacy effect and the impact of excessive competition resulting from firm density. This comprehensive analysis significantly contributes to our comprehension of the intricate interplay between firm density and entrepreneurship, shedding light on the dynamics of competition and mutual benefits.

The innovation process demands an interaction between environment agents, knowledge generators and policies of incentive for innovation and not only development by companies. Universities have gradually become the core of the knowledge production system and, therefore, their role regarding innovation has become more important and diversified. This study is aimed at identifying the mechanisms of university–industry (U–I) collaboration, as well as the operationalization steps of the U–I collaboration process.

This study is aimed at identifying, based on a systematic literature review, the mechanisms of university–industry (U–I) collaboration, as well as the operationalization steps of the U–I collaboration process.

The analysis of the 72 selected articles enabled identifying 15 mechanisms of U–I collaboration, proposing a new classification for such mechanisms and developing a framework presenting the operationalization steps of the interaction process.

In this paper, the authors screened nearly 1,500 papers and analyzed in detail 86 papers addressing U–I collaboration, mechanisms of U–I collaboration and operationalization steps of the U–I collaboration process. This paper provides a new classification for such mechanisms and developing a framework presenting the operationalization steps of the interaction process. This research contributes to both theory and practice by highlighting managerial aspects and stimulating academic research on such timely topic.