University-industry interaction and product innovation performance of Guangdong manufacturing firms: the roles of regional proximity and research quality of universities

This study aims to investigate the direct relationships of university proximity and research quality with the product innovation performance of Chinese firms engaging in diverse university interaction channels. We collected data on the extent to which a sample of 166 Guangdong manufacturing firms draw from the intra-regional and cross-regional universities, as well as high-quality and average-quality universities. Our results revealed that: (1) interaction with intra-regional universities is more strongly associated with incremental product innovations, whereas interaction with cross-regional universities is more strongly associated with radical product innovations; (2) average-quality university linkages have a stronger relationship with incremental product innovations, while high-quality university linkages have a stronger relationship with radical product innovations; (3) interaction with cross-regional high-quality universities is more strongly associated with radical product innovations, but interaction with intra-regional average-universities is more strongly associated with incremental product innovations. These results furthered our understanding on how firms’ product innovations are related to university linkages of different degrees of regional proximity and research quality, and bear direct practical implications for firm strategy and governmental policy.