Playing the role of leading-chain enterprises' traction to achieve the overall breakthroughs of key core technology throughout the industrial chain and supply chain is an important way to guarantee the security of the industrial chain and supply chain. According to existing literature, corporate basic research can generate positive spillover effects, which influence subsequent innovation both within and across industries. So, when a leading-chain enterprise enhances its basic research capabilities, could this generate spillover effects along the industrial chain and supply chain that impact other enterprises in the chain, beyond potentially influencing its own technological breakthroughs? If there is an impact, through what mechanisms does the spillover effect operate? Does this impact vary between upstream and downstream leading-chain enterprises and member enterprises? However, relevant research has not systematically addressed these questions. The dimensions within empowerment theory can be categorized into psychological, resource, and structural empowerment. These dimensions systematically reveal the systemic impact of basic research conducted by leading-chain enterprises on breakthroughs in key core technologies among chain member enterprises.

This study focuses on the bottlenecks faced by chain member enterprises in pursuing key core technological innovations. Guided by empowerment theory, it conducts theoretical analysis centered on whether leading-chain enterprises can effectively empower chain member enterprises to overcome their innovation barriers. Empirical testing is conducted using a large sample of data from listed advanced manufacturing enterprises from 2015 to 2022.

The findings are as follows: (1) when the level of basic research of upstream leading-chain enterprises is high, it can significantly promote key core technology breakthroughs of chain member enterprises, while no such effect exists between downstream leading-chain enterprises and chain member enterprises. (2) Mechanism research shows that upstream leading-chain enterprises promote key core technology breakthroughs of chain member enterprises mainly through three kinds of empowerment effects: psychological empowerment, resource empowerment and structural empowerment. (3) Heterogeneity analysis reveals that the positive effect is more pronounced when: -Chain member firms are non-state-owned; - The industry faces intense competition; - The region exhibits low human capital levels; - Geographical and technological distances between leading-chain and member firms are shorter, while organizational distances are greater (e.g., state-owned leading-chain firms paired with non-state-owned members).

The contributions of this paper are as follows: First, the scope of spillover effects are expanded to include leading-chain and chain-member enterprises classified by their positions within the industrial chain, thereby broadening the scope of research subjects for industrial chain and supply chain spillover effects. Second, through large-sample empirical tests, we find that the spillover effects of upstream and downstream leading-chain enterprises' basic research is different along the industrial chain and supply chain. This provides new empirical evidence on whether leading-chain enterprises can drive the development of chain-member enterprises in innovation fields. Furthermore, guided by the empowerment theory, we have unlocked the inherent “black box” of spillover effects generated by the basic research of leading-chain enterprises. This also expands the application scenarios of the empowerment theory. Finally, this paper also establishes for the first time a methodology for identifying leading-chain enterprises and chain member enterprises. This provides a relatively precise and feasible basis for subsequent research to identify and determine such entities.