Key technology enterprises serve as the carriers, creators, and pioneering users of technologies for elderly care services. They provide the underlying technical framework for the innovation system of elderly care services and drive the evolution of this system. Most of the existing studies examine the innovation system of elderly care services from the perspectives of the macro-architecture and operational mechanisms, and there is insufficient attention paid to the important roles and diverse influences of key technology enterprises.

Based on an investigation of Tencent Silver Hair Technology Laboratory, we derive the evolutionary process of the elderly care service innovation system and the key technology enterprise effects. It reveals that the elderly care service innovation system consists of a technology niche system, a technology competition-cooperation system, and interaction flows between them. Within the technology niche system, key technology enterprises exert demand-driven effects and technology-driven effects. Internal and external linkage coordination effects are performed in the technology competition-cooperation system. During the interaction process, key technology enterprises exert a catalytic effect of connecting and consolidating the social and technological systems through demand linkage, resource integration, and rule improvement.

This study clarifies the evolutionary framework and key technology enterprise effects of the elderly care service innovation system from the perspective of actor interactions, deepens and develops socio-technical systems theory, and provides new research perspectives and practical implications for elderly care service innovation.