Open innovation, as a novel paradigm of innovation, calls for deeper exploration of how it can be effectively leveraged. Both inbound and outbound open innovation were examined to assess their distinct impacts on firm performance and underlying mechanisms. The empirical results indicate that, firstly, inbound open innovation has a positive effect on firm performance, while outbound open innovation shows an inverted U-shaped relationship with firm performance, indicating a threshold effect. Secondly, in terms of mechanisms, inbound open innovation primarily enhances firm performance by improving agile R&D capabilities, while outbound open innovation does so by strengthening agile commercialization capabilities. Thirdly, firm size moderates the effects of both types of open innovation. It positively moderates the relationship between inbound open innovation and performance, and also strengthens the inverted U-shaped relationship between outbound open innovation and performance. These findings enrich the understanding of different open innovation types and offer insights into achieving effective, open, and autonomous innovation.

The reform of "expanding power and strengthening zones" is an important path to stimulate the development vitality of China's development zones. The provincial development zone upgrading policy was treated as a policy shock, with panel data from 216 prefecture-level cities during 2004 to 2020 were then taken as research samples, and a difference-in-differences model was built to evaluate the impact of the policy on urban entrepreneurial activity. It is demonstrated that the upgrading provincial development zones significantly improved urban entrepreneurial activity, with stronger policy effects observed in southeast coastal regions, cities characterized by advanced industry-university-research integration, and cities with high governmental efficiency. The provincial development zone upgrading policy's entrepreneurial incentive effect is driven by three key mechanisms including positive externalities from entrepreneurship public service platform establishment, market expansion effects from enhanced domestic and international market potential, and innovation agglomeration effects from strengthened innovation incentives. Further analysis demonstrated that the provincial development zone upgrading policy not only promoted high-quality entrepreneurship in the cities where these zones are located, but also generated spatial spillover effects enhancing entrepreneurial activity enhancing entrepreneurial activity within a 50 ~ 100 km radius. These findings provide useful references for promoting a high-quality entrepreneurial ecosystem in cities with development zones as the core.

Under the dual background of digitalization and servitization, how manufacturing enterprises can empower service innovation through digital capabilities is a concern shared by both the theoretical and practical communities. Based on the dynamic capabilities theory and organizational information processing theory, the theoretical model of three kinds of digital capabilities affecting the service innovation performance of manufacturing was constructed with organizational agility as the moderating variable. Through the questionnaire survey and empirical analysis of 276 manufacturing enterprises, the result shows three kinds of digital capabilities can significantly promote the service innovation performance of manufacturing enterprises. Two types of organizational agility play a differential moderating role in this process. Market agility enhances the positive relationship between digital perception and service innovation performance of manufacturing enterprises, while operational agility enhances the positive effects of digital insight and digital transformation capabilities on the performance of service innovation in manufacturing enterprises. It enriches the antecedents of service innovation in manufacturing enterprises and provides guidance for the transformation and upgrading of manufacturing enterprises in the era of digital economy.

The intelligent transformation, digital transformation and network connection of the manufacturing industry (referred to as IDN) is the main way to promote the new qualitative change of the real economy and achieve high-quality development, and the focus is to improve the innovation supply capacity of the key technologies of IND in the manufacturing industry. As the manufacturing industry concentrated distribution area and the forefront of transformation development, the IDN key technology innovation supply capacity of manufacturing industry in Yangtze River Delta has an important leading role and demonstration significance. On the basis of defining the manufacturing industry IDN key technologies and their functional composition, using the national industrial and commercial enterprise registration information and patent information to measure and evaluate the innovation supply capacity of the IDN key technologies of the manufacturing industry in the Yangtze River Delta, which is in the forefront of the whole country and Jiangsu Province is the most outstanding. Finally, in order to further enhance the innovation supply capacity of manufacturing IDN key technologies in the Yangtze River Delta, several policy measures are designed. These measures may help the Yangtze River Delta Economic Zone generate both the demonstration effect and the radiation effect, and drive the high-quality deep integration of manufacturing industry and digital economy across the country in the digital era.

In recent years, China's innovation has entered a new stage of development from "quantity" to "quality", and the supply side policies supporting innovation are weak. How to better play the role of the "new carriage" of demand side government procurement policies has become an increasingly concerned issue in all sectors of society. Using data from 3633 Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed companies from 2015 to 2021, along with 11887 government procurement contract records and over 1.34 million patent data entries, the enhancing effect and influencing mechanisms of government procurement on corporate innovation quality were empirically examined. The findings indicate that government procurement significantly promotes the improvement of innovation quality in enterprises, and significantly enhances the innovation quality of enterprises through two mechanisms: expanding market demand and alleviating financing constraints. Heterogeneity analysis shows that government procurement can better promote the improvement of innovation quality in small and medium-sized enterprises, non-state-owned enterprises, and strategic emerging industry enterprises. Based on these results, it is recommended that China further refine its government procurement policies and implementation plans, enhance their adaptability, and promote high-quality innovation and development among enterprises.

In the new context of the digital economy, intellectual property protection as an important means for enterprises to engage in independent innovation and improve market competitiveness. In view of this, panel data from A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen from 2011 to 2021 and provincial-level data were used to test the impact and mechanism of intellectual property protection on enterprise digital innovation. The results show as follows. Overall, intellectual property protection can promote enterprise digital innovation. In terms of life cycle, the promotion effect of intellectual property protection on digital innovation is more significant in growing enterprises. Mechanism analysis shows that intellectual property protection can promote enterprise digital innovation through two paths: reducing R&D spillovers and alleviating financing constraints. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the promotion effect of intellectual property protection on digital innovation is more pronounced in growing service industry enterprises, high-tech enterprises, and private enterprises. The research expands the research perspective of digital innovation, provides theoretical reference for relevant management departments to formulate and improve intellectual property protection policies, and also provides guidance for enterprises to develop digital innovation.

The key to promoting industrial innovation through technological innovation lies in increasing enterprise research and development investment. In the context of increasing economic policy uncertainty and deepening digital transformation, it is of great research value to determine the impact on enterprise research and development investment. Using A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen from 2012 to 2022 as a sample, the synergistic impact of perceived economic policy uncertainty and digital transformation on corporate R&D investment was examined. Corporate R&D investment is significantly increased by the synergistic effect between perceived economic policy uncertainty and digital transformation. This conclusion is empirically confirmed through multiple robustness tests including instrumental variables. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the synergistic effect of uncertainty in corporate economic policies and digital transformation on R&D investment is more pronounced in the primary and secondary industries, manufacturing, and non-state-owned enterprises. Mechanism tests reveal that digital human capital, corporate tax incentives, and executive strategic foresight are three potential channels for the synergistic impact of perceived economic policy uncertainty and digital transformation on corporate R&D investment. Relevant literature on the relationship between perceived economic policy uncertainty, digital transformation, and enterprise R&D investment is expanded, with policy insights provided for corporate R&D decision-making amid volatile economic policy environments and accelerated digital transformation processes.

The entry of platform enterprises into market competition has reshaped the traditional competitive landscape. To investigate potential monopoly risks arising from the cross-market leveraging of platform dominance, an empirical model was constructed by matching cross-platform data from Tmall Supermarket's self-operation channel and Tmall Mall's direct-selling channel. The impact of the expansion of platform self-operation on the sales of seller firms was examined. The findings reveal dual effects—demand expansion and demand substitution—moderated by the market competition environment. In highly competitive homogeneous markets, the platform's segmentation into a self-operated sub-platform and a direct-selling platform is found to alleviate excessive competition, thereby promoting the sales of seller firms. Conversely, in less competitive niche markets, the differential advantage of platform self-operation leads to a decrease in seller firms' sales and a shift of overall industry demand towards the self-operated platform. This substitution effect is shown to primarily impact start-up small and medium-sized Enterprises, resulting in a "Matthew effect" in the allocation of platform resources. The conclusions of this research provide empirical evidence for the formulation of differentiated antitrust regulatory policies for platforms.

In recent years, the development of e-commerce has spurred the emergence of numerous new forms of gig employment. However, due to the limited availability of data on these new employment types, there has been little research on the impact of e-commerce on gig employment. To investigate the effect of e-commerce on gig wages and its underlying mechanisms, gig recruitment data from online part-time job platforms were collected and matched with city-level e-commerce demonstration enterprise data released by the Ministry of Commerce of the People's Republic of China. The empirical analysis shows that e-commerce development significantly elevates local gig wage levels, and this conclusion remains valid after accounting for endogeneity issues and conducting a series of robustness checks. Mechanism analysis indicates that firm agglomeration effects and the enhancement of entrepreneurial activity are two crucial channels through which e-commerce development promotes gig wage growth. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that the positive impact of e-commerce on gig wages is more pronounced in e-commerce-related jobs and regions with higher economic development. Therefore, local governments should strengthen the construction of e-commerce industrial parks by optimizing industrial layouts, offering tax incentives and financial support, and continuously improving the entrepreneurial environment to increase flexible employment opportunities, and adjusting the policies according to the regional economic development level to foster the high-quality development of both e-commerce and the gig economy.

Fiscal authorities are entrusted with significant responsibilities in advancing ecological conservation and environmental governance objectives. Under the digital economy context, exploration of the relationship between new infrastructure-induced fiscal pressure and the performance of local governments' environmental protection expenditures is considered crucial for achieving pollution and carbon reduction targets. Based on spatial spillover perspective, panel data from 267 prefecture-level cities in China from 2013 to 2021 were employed to construct a spatial Durbin model. The relative fiscal pressure caused by new infrastructure is empirically verified to influence environmental protection expenditure performance, while spatial spillover characteristics of such performance are simultaneously examined. Significant enhancement of local governments' environmental protection expenditure performance is found to be triggered by new infrastructure-induced relative fiscal pressure, with results remaining robust after rigorous testing and endogeneity analysis. Positive spatial spillover effects are observed in China's local government environmental protection expenditure performance, exhibiting regional heterogeneity. Policy implications are provided regarding both performance improvement of environmental protection expenditures and fiscal pressure alleviation for local governments.