Connecting emerging industry and regional innovation system: Linkages, effect and paradigm in China

An emerging industry refers to an aggregation of sectors and firms that create disruptive technologies and/or huge market potentials. Emerging industries based on technological innovation have increasingly become an important driving force for industrial competitiveness and economic growth. Although regional innovation systems (RISs) boost regional industries, it remains under-investigated whether and how RISs have differential impacts on different industries. Inspired by Pavitt's taxonomy of sectorial innovation, we propose four paradigms of industrial innovation in the context of emerging industries in China. We also empirically explore the effects of RISs on emerging industries, distinguishing the short-term effects from long-term ones. We present two key findings. First, RISs have generally contributed to the growth of emerging industries in China. Second, different components of RISs have varied impacts on different emerging industries. The results provide both theoretical underpinnings and empirical evidence for policy-makers, suggesting that well-designed policies that leverage RIS formation and regional industry specific characteristics are vitally important for development of emerging industries. Our study makes three important contributions. First, it theorizes a conceptual framework on possible mechanism through which RISs promote emerging industries. Second, this study sheds empirical light on both short-term and long-term effects of individual RIS components on seven emerging industries in the Chinese context. Third, the paper proposes four paradigms of industrial innovation in emerging industries under the RIS framework. •Mechanisms of linking regional innovation systems (RIS) and emerging industries are theoretically established.•This paper presents empirical evidence on strong linkages between RIS and emerging industries in China.•Industry-specific characteristics are embedded with the effect of RIS on different typical emerging industries in China.•Four innovation paradigms in emerging industries are identified.