Innovation is the fundamental engine of economic growth, and basic research constitutes the cornerstone of long-term technological advancement. Unlike applied research, whose outcomes can be privately appropriated through patents or trade secrets, basic research produces knowledge with strong public-good characteristics and positive externalities. While universities and public institutes have traditionally dominated this domain, firms are increasingly emerging as important contributors. In 2023, business enterprises accounted for 77.7% of R&D expenditures in China, although Chinese firms still lag in both the scale and intensity of such activities relative to advanced economies. Using firm-level panel data from Shanghai high-technology enterprises between 2008 and 2018, this paper provides new evidence on the patterns, motivations, and innovation effects of firms' basic research. Empirically, we document robust positive effects of firms' academic publications on technological output. Each additional firm-authored academic paper is associated with a 1.7% increase in total invention patent applications and a 0.8% increase in breakthrough patent applications (measured as patents among the top 20% by citations within their primary classification). Mechanism tests indicate that the effects operate through three channels: (i) increased knowledge density (higher forward and backward citation intensities), (ii) expanded technological boundaries (more newly entered technology fields and patents covering new fields), and (iii) enhanced economic value of inventions (larger claim counts and claim lengths). We further document heterogeneous effects across industries. The positive impact of basic research on breakthrough innovation is stronger in industries with greater R&D human capital intensity, while mere R&D expenditure intensity does not amplify the effect. Industries with strong product-based technological revenues exhibit larger research-driven gains, while sectors dominated by service-based technology revenues show weaker effects. These findings yield three main contributions. First, by analyzing a large and representative sample of roughly 63,000 science and technology enterprises, the paper provides new high-quality micro evidence that firms in an emerging economy are increasingly engaging in basic research. Second, it identifies direct productivity linkages from firm basic research to applied R&D outputs and technological breakthroughs, complementing prior literature that emphasized indirect reputational or absorptive channels. Third, the study demonstrates that corporate basic research can generate breakthrough innovations that strengthen firms' sustainable competitive advantage, suggesting a viable pathway for innovation upgrading in emerging markets. From a policy perspective, the results imply targeted public interventions. Because basic research is high-risk and generates diffuse externalities that may discourage private investment, governments should expand dedicated funding for corporate basic research, particularly for small and medium-sized high-tech firms, and enhance tax incentives (for example, higher R&D tax credits for basic research expenditures). Policy design should be sector-sensitive: industries with dense R&D human capital and product-oriented technological returns merit stronger support to catalyze core technology breakthroughs. Finally, since basic research depends critically on highly educated personnel, policymakers should facilitate talent mobility and firm-university collaboration through joint research centers, industry-academia chairs, and flexible arrangements that allow researchers to hold part-time or full-time positions across institutions.

Entrepreneurship, as one of the core driving forces of economic vitality, continuously injects fresh blood and growth momentum into the high-quality economic development by providing employment, industrial upgrading and structural transformation. Meanwhile, standards, as the institutional cornerstone for the construction of a unified national market, provide an important guarantee for the prosperity and development of the urban entrepreneurial ecosystem. Since 2016, the State Council has successively approved five provinces including Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Shandong, Shanxi and Guangdong to launch national comprehensive reform pilot actions for standardization. Each region focused on areas such as technological innovation, public services and internationalization environment, and carried out comprehensive governance reforms in aspects such as standardization system construction, institutional mechanisms and supply capacity. Based on the theory of entrepreneurial ecosystem, the implementation of the national comprehensive reform pilot policies for standardization is regarded as a quasi-natural experiment. Using the panel data of 277 prefecture-level cities in China from 2007 to 2022, a multi-time-point difference-in-differences model was constructed to examine the empowerment effect of standardization governance on urban entrepreneurial vitality and the influencing mechanism. The research findings are as follows: (1) The standardized governance actions represented by Chinese Standardization Comprehensive Reform Pilot significantly enhanced the entrepreneurial activity of cities. This conclusion remained valid after a series of robustness tests such as parallel trend test, placebo test, substitution of dependent variables, and change of research methods; (2) The mechanism test indicates that technological innovation clustering and public service optimization played a mediating role in activating the entrepreneurial vitality of cities through standardized governance, while the enrichment of human resources and high-level opening-up positively regulated the incentive effect of standardized governance on the level of urban entrepreneurship; (3) The enhancement effect of the national comprehensive reform pilot policies on the entrepreneurial activity of cities varies due to different urban characteristics such as geographical location, education investment, industrial environment and marketization degree. Specifically, the entrepreneurial incentive effect of standardized governance is more obvious in northern cities, cities with greater education investment, better industrial environment and higher marketization degree. The research conclusions of this paper provide new ideas for activating the urban entrepreneurial ecosystem, explore the boundaries of standardized governance, and offer certain references for building a unified national market and promoting high-quality economic development. The possible contributions of this paper are as follows: First, by constructing a quasi-natural experiment based on the national comprehensive reform pilot of standardization, this paper for the first time evaluated and demonstrated the entrepreneurial incentive effect of standardized governance, not only expanding the influence boundary of standardized policies, but also enriching the entrepreneurial research system in the Chinese context from the institutional level. Second, based on the comprehensive application of the entrepreneurial ecosystem theory and Schumpeter's innovation theory, this paper deeply reveals the internal mechanism of standardized governance activating the urban entrepreneurial ecosystem from multiple aspects such as technological innovation, public services, human resources endowment and opening-up, enriching the research content of government policies' impact on urban entrepreneurship, and also based on geographical location and urban characteristics, carefully examines the heterogeneity facts of policy effect. Third, starting from stimulating the entrepreneurial vitality of cities, this paper connects the formulation of government policies and the commercial behavior of market entities from the perspective of standardized governance, providing a theoretical logic and empirical evidence for the combination of an active government and an effective market to jointly exert efforts and promote innovation development.

In today's era marked by fragility, anxiety, non-linearity, and incomprehensibility, the “thrust” generated by societal progress and the “resistance” shaped by risk scenarios continue to accumulate, making long-term equilibrium elusive. This dynamic places enterprises in a perpetual state of tension where crisis and opportunity coexist within their operations and management. The cultural and tourism industry is highly sensitive to safety issues. Persistent crisis scenarios triggered by both internal industry factors and external elements — such as natural, social, political, and economic forces — can pose significant threats to the normal operations and survival of cultural and tourism enterprises. In navigating external crises, organizational resilience serves as the key to value creation through the cultivation of endogenous capabilities. The organizational resilience of cultural and tourism enterprises refers to the corresponding capacity for resistance, adaptation, and innovation formed through adopting appropriate resource allocation methods during the pre-crisis, crisis, and post-crisis response phases. It not only determines a cultural and tourism enterprise's adaptability to unexpected obstacles but also underpins its long-term success and sustainability. When confronted with setbacks, a resilient enterprise can swiftly adjust strategies and identify new growth opportunities. Based on resource action view, this paper examines four representative cases of cultural tourism enterprises to analyze the development of organizational resilience and the role of utility in value creation. The findings are as follows: (1) The formation of organizational resilience of cultural tourism enterprises follows the logic of "external crisis impact - internal resource arrangement - organizational ability", and its effectiveness follows the logic of "organizational ability - resource action - value creation". (2) The impact of organizational resilience on the value creation of cultural tourism enterprises is primarily seen in three areas: economic value, social value, and environmental value. Additionally, there is a positive mediating role of resource action between organizational resilience and value creation. (3) Cultural tourism enterprises, regardless of their property rights, follow the same fundamental logic in developing organizational resilience and achieving value creation. However, there are significant differences in resource arrangement and resource action paths. From the perspective of formation processes, state-owned enterprises (SOEs) adopt resource divestiture strategies during crises and resource expansion strategies afterward, in contrast to private enterprises. Regarding the utilization of resources, SOEs gain government support through resource coordination pathways; private enterprises formulate suitable development strategies via resource linkage pathways; and SOEs also emphasize industrial chain integration through resource enrichment pathways. The contribution of this article lies in relying on the underlying logic of resilience shaping, incorporating resilience shaping and utility exertion into the analysis of the enterprise value creation process, and comprehensively depicting the formation process of organizational resilience in cultural and tourism enterprises and its impact path on value creation. A new connection path of "organizational resilience - resource action - value creation" is proposed, expanding the explanatory boundary of the resource action theory. It also clarifies the logic of how resource actions form capabilities and how they drive value creation, providing a new cognitive perspective for enterprises to achieve value creation in a highly uncertain environment.

By creating a novel theoretical framework based in the sociology of science but adapted to China's particular state-led system, this study tackles the ongoing problem of scientific misconduct in the country's research landscape. China has a disproportionately high retraction rate (0.3%, three times the global average), according to an analysis of global retraction data from 2001 to 2020. There are also clear trends, with emerging science nations like China seeing rising retraction shares that surpass their publication output while established powers saw declines. The prevalence of plagiarism and fabrication gave way to more complex types of misconduct, such as paper mills, which had an especially negative effect on the fields of biology and medicine during China's explosive rise in these domains. Historically, universities were the main providers, but in the past ten years, hospitals—which are primarily associated with paper mills—have risen to over half of retractions.

These patterns reveal the shortcomings of Western-centric theories such as Merton's concept of "priority" competition. This framework positions China's "Competition for Meritocracy" (You Sheng Quan) as fundamental. Government dominance fosters a resource allocation model characterized by "competition for excellence," compelling researchers to engage in intense rivalry during a "shortlist-selection" process. Success is fundamentally dependent not on absolute "priority" but on attaining relative superiority within a candidate pool, reflecting the principles of "meritocracy." This generates distinct pressure dynamics: the main stressor is uncertainty stemming from the performance escalation of peers within the cohort, rather than from fixed benchmarks. Accelerated average peer growth significantly increases pressure, which, when it surpasses the limitations of national integrity policies and scientific self-regulation, results in misconduct.

This framework underwent empirical validation via a rigorous micro-level quantitative analysis of Chinese biology researchers, a field characterized by high levels of misconduct. A matched-pair sample was created consisting of 116 researchers with retractions from 2001 to 2020, paired with 116 controls matched on institution, department, gender, age, education, career stage, and honors, but lacking retractions. The longitudinal career and performance data from 2001 to 2020 resulted in an unbalanced panel comprising 3,920 observations. Logistic regression incorporating time fixed effects validated the primary hypotheses. 1) Increased perceived competitive pressure, indicated by the deviation of individual publication growth from personal moving averages, significantly elevated the probability of misconduct; 2) Accelerated average peer publication growth within the department (lagged) notably heightened misconduct, supporting the peer-driven pressure mechanism; 3) The existence of an active institutional misconduct policy substantially diminished the pressure-misconduct relationship, highlighting the essential role of organizational governance in mitigation.

Consequently, the persistence of misconduct in China is fundamentally rooted in the systemic pressures arising from competition for relative status within a meritocratic allocation framework. Effective solutions necessitate structural reform: shifting resource allocation from solely competitive selection to hybrid models that include thresholds; enhancing the governance capacity of research organizations to enforce integrity policies; and promoting collaborative ecosystems to reduce hyper-competition and redirect research towards meaningful innovation. Addressing these systemic drivers is essential for ensuring sustainable research integrity in China and comparable contexts.

Against the backdrop of rapid advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and the accelerating reshaping of the global technological competition landscape, interdisciplinary integration has increasingly become a critical driver of technological breakthroughs and knowledge innovation. Particularly amid intensifying Sino-American technological rivalry, comparing the differences in AI interdisciplinary knowledge integration paths across countries is of significant practical relevance for optimizing innovation strategies and enhancing competitive resilience. However, existing studies have predominantly focused on AI theory development, technological innovation, and overall trends, with relatively limited systematic exploration of AI’s interdisciplinary knowledge system and its evolutionary mechanisms. This gap partially constrains understanding of the intrinsic patterns of AI development and, consequently, limits the ability to seize strategic initiative.

This study draws on the Web of Science (WoS) database, selecting 89,448 valid publications up to December 31, 2024, and constructs an integrated research framework encompassing “topic identification - structural analysis - mechanism comparison”. First, employing the BERTopic modeling method, the study identifies representative interdisciplinary topics in AI and characterizes their features in terms of knowledge sources, integration depth, and structural types by introducing disciplinary diversity and cohesion indicators. Second, by analyzing changes in topic intensity and content evolution, it reveals the evolutionary paths and coupling patterns of interdisciplinary knowledge across different stages. Finally, using the United States and China as comparative cases, the study examines differences in topic distribution, structural patterns, and driving mechanisms, exploring how institutional logic, organizational forms, and resource allocation shape interdisciplinary integration.

The findings indicate that the AI field has formed a complex interdisciplinary knowledge system composed of 23 heterogeneous topics, with significant variation across topics in disciplinary sources, integration depth, and structural complexity, displaying a combination of parallel paradigms, heterogeneous integration, and structural coupling. The evolution of interdisciplinary knowledge typically follows a cyclical process, progressing from the introduction of heterogeneous elements to the integration of methodological paradigms and the differentiation of new subfields, with coupling realized through multi-layered nested coordination between core and interface disciplines. International comparison shows that the U.S. emphasizes paradigm-driven, system-level diffusion, relying on open collaboration and multi-actor participation to promote parallel exploration across multiple directions, whereas China exhibits an engineering- and application-driven pattern, emphasizing concentrated resource mobilization and rapid integration, resulting in goal-focused and outcome-oriented pathways. These mechanistic differences not only influence the pace and direction of knowledge evolution but also shape each country’s relative advantages in frontier leadership and applied breakthroughs.

The study proposes high-level strategic directions for enhancing China’s interdisciplinary integration capacity and systemic innovation resilience in AI, including the development of heterogeneous coupling platforms, optimization of project and collaboration mechanisms, and the cultivation of interface discipline ecosystems. The research systematically extends the characterization of interdisciplinary knowledge structures, the identification of evolutionary paths, and comparative analysis of U.S. and Chinese mechanisms, offering a generalizable analytical framework and methodological approach. It deepens understanding of the patterns and mechanisms of interdisciplinary integration in AI and provides a novel theoretical perspective for studying the complexity of technological convergence. By elucidating cross-national differences in interdisciplinary innovation paths and driving logics, the study provides scholarly support and practical guidance for formulating forward-looking AI development strategies and strenthening competitiveness global technological competition.

Intelligent Connected Vehicles (ICVs), as intelligent entities deeply involved in constructing social order in the AI era, shift the focus to transportation—a dimension often overlooked in mainstream communication studies—thereby establishing a theoretical foundation for highlighting their significance in communication studies. Under current socio-technological conditions, the interactive activities jointly participated in by humans and ICVs epitomize the reality of human-machine integrated communication. The technological evolution and social embeddedness of ICVs reveal the practical role of such integration.In terms of technological evolution, ICVs establish cross-node connectivity among humans, vehicles, infrastructure, and networks. Building upon this foundation, large-scale AI models trigger interaction generalization, ultimately transcending "geofencing" and bridging spatial divides. Regarding social embeddedness, ICVs provide a preliminary basis for constructing a "multi-scalar communicable" environment and fostering barrier-free societies. However, they also face two paradoxes: energy consumption and unemployment crises, while legal and ethical dilemmas remain unresolved issues.

Constructing open digital platforms is essential for industrial enterprises to achieve digital transformation and ecological synergy. However, systematic research on integrating external innovation capabilities with internal business systems through platform openness remains limited. This study employs a longitudinal case analysis of five pioneering industrial enterprises to elucidate the construction path and ecological synergy mechanisms of open digital platform capabilities. Findings reveal: (1) The construction of these capabilities follows a three-stage progression “open infrastructure—ecological synergy expansion—value co-creation iteration,” characterized by phases of “connection—symbiosis—evolution.” (2) “Digital-ecological” capabilities, facilitated by “introduction—collaboration—governance” strategies, achieve synergies across “technical interfaces—resource networks—rule systems,” transforming the platform from an instrumental infrastructure to an innovation ecosystem hub. This research reveals the dynamic laws of open digital platform capability construction, expands the intersection of open digital platform theory and ecosystem research, and provides actionable insights for industrial enterprises to accelerate ecological transformation through open strategies.

The scientifically and rationally delineation of fiscal authority and expenditure responsibilities in the field of science and technology is a key institutional arrangement for deepening fiscal and scientific reform, holding significant strategic importance for enhancing the overall effectiveness of the national innovation system. Against the backdrop of accelerating the implementation of the innovation-driven development strategy and building a world-class science and technology power, clarifying the roles of governments at all levels in science and technology governance and establishing a stable and efficient fiscal support mechanism are of great practical significance for stimulating societal innovation vitality and achieving high-quality economic development. This study takes the three major coastal urban agglomerations in China—representative samples with the most active innovation activities and cutting-edge reform practices—as the focus. It employs a mixed research methodology combining qualitative case analysis and quantitative empirical research: On one hand, the study conducts an in-depth analysis of the three coastal urban agglomerations, using the Hefei Comprehensive National Science Center as a typical case to outline and summarize the pathways and outcomes of fiscal authority and expenditure responsibility reforms in the scientific and technological sector. On the other hand, guided by the Reform Plan for the Division of Fiscal Authority and Expenditure Responsibility Between the Central and Local Governments in the Scientific and Technological Sector, the study constructs a difference-in-differences model and empirically examines the impact of fiscal authority reforms on innovation capacity using panel data from the three coastal urban agglomerations.

Research findings: (1) The reform of fiscal responsibilities and expenditure obligations in the science and technology sector has a significant enhancing effect on innovation capabilities. This indicates that clearly defining the fiscal responsibilities of governments at various levels in different types of scientific and technological activities can effectively optimize the innovation governance structure, thereby unleashing innovation vitality and improving innovation capabilities. (2) The reform’s role in promoting innovation capabilities is primarily achieved through two mechanisms: First, it reduces the misallocation of innovation resources by optimizing the distribution of scientific and technological resources across levels and fields through more rational fiscal responsibility delineation, effectively correcting distorted resource allocation between departments and regions and improving the overall input-output efficiency of the innovation system. Second, it enhances the vibrancy of innovation and entrepreneurship by establishing a stable and predictable fiscal support framework and precisely guiding social capital, which greatly incentivizes innovation and entrepreneurial activities among various market entities such as enterprises and researchers, fostering a more dynamic regional innovation ecosystem.(3) The policy effects of the reform exhibit important amplification mechanisms. The study reveals that increasing talent recruitment intensity and boosting research and development investment intensity are two key positive moderating variables, implying that when fiscal responsibility delineation reform is combined with proactive talent policies and sustained research and development investment, its impact on innovation capabilities will be multiplicatively amplified.The findings of this study hold dual significance. Theoretically, by examining the institutional drivers of innovation capability enhancement from the perspective of fiscal system arrangements, this paper enriches the institutional economics explanation of innovation capability formation and development. Practically, the research conclusions provide direct empirical evidence and policy insights for the coordinated advancement of the new round of fiscal system reform and science and technology system reform.

Against the backdrop of China’s evolving science and technology governance, provincial laboratories are established across the country as pivots to bridge central strategies and local implementation, and as important platforms to promote the restructuring of regional innovation systems. Currently, the research regarding the establishment, development paths, and the role of provincial laboratories in driving the restructuring of regional innovation systems are still relatively under-investigated. To address this research gap, this paper employs the Multi-level Perspective and the Regional Innovation System theory to build an integrated analytical framework. Unlike traditional approaches that view innovation systems as static, this framework particularly focuses on the dynamic interplay and interweaving among multi-level factors, namely, the Macro-level Landscape (national strategy), the Meso-level Regime (regional in- stitutional frameworks), and the Micro-level Niche (technological innovation activities). This framework aims to decode how the institutional construction of provincial laboratories can serve as a process of socio-technical transition and finally lead to the reform of regional innovation systems. To verify this framework, this paper presents a single case study of the Liaoning HH Laboratory, a representative entity situated in a traditional industrial base facing urgent transformation pressures - Liaoning Province. By utilizing triangulated data from semi-structured interviews, participant observations, and internal documents, the study conducts a deep investigation into the case laboratory’s evolution in the area of high-end equipment manufacturing and machine tools. The case analysis reveals that provincial laboratories can act as critical adapters in the regional innovation system. Specifically, the study identifies three distinct paths in the HH Laboratory’s establishment and evolution: (1) Top-down institutional translation: responding to the landscape directives of national strategies, the laboratory was empowered to build a relatively autonomous management structure, which enables the laboratory to effectively convert abstract national strategies into localized exercises, thereby overcoming the previous disconnection between central policies and local implementation. (2) Meso-level demand alignment: by anchoring itself in the regional regime, the laboratory identifies and addresses specific local industrial demand, such as some technological barriers in machine tools, thereby helping tackle the historical misalignment that hindered local university research from supporting regional industrial upgrading. (3) Bottom-up consolidation of innovation activities: focusing on the niche level, the laboratory provides pre-investment and specialized support to consolidate fragmented innovation resources, which facilitates the commercialization of technologies that individual enterprises cannot handle, thereby feeding successful innovation experiences back into the provincial institution to reshape regional policies for technological innovation. With these findings, the case study reveals that provincial laboratories, as important vehicles for exploring new R&D mechanisms at the provincial level, have undertaken multiple functions in responding to national strategies, aligning regional industry-academia needs, and enhancing the efficiency of technology transfer. In this way, the provincial laboratory has effectively transformed the past innovation institution featured with insufficient central-local coordination, weak innovation foundation, and loose organization of innovation entities into a new institution. The analysis of this study indicates that provincial laboratories are not merely local executors of national projects but have become an active hub for multi-level policy coordination. In this sense, they perform an important force for promoting the transformation of regional innovation systems by aligning vertical strategic goals with horizontal industrial needs. The operational mechanisms of provincial laboratories provided an empirical basis and theoretical insights for understanding the on-going changes in China’s science and technology governance system.

In September 2023, General Secretary Xi Jinping pioneered the concept of new quality productivity, emphasizing the need to integrate scientific and technological innovation resources, lead the development of strategic emerging industries and future industries, and accelerate the formation of new quality productivity. Concurrently, the digital economy is accelerating the deconstruction and reshaping of traditional production factors, value creation models, and industrial organization forms. Digital industrial clusters, formed through physical geographic agglomeration and digital space interconnectivity, have emerged accordingly. Among the 45 national advanced manufacturing clusters announced by China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in 2022, 13 were digital industrial clusters. In the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)'s 2024 Global Innovation Index (GII) Report, digital industrial clusters occupied four spots in the global top ten science and technology innovation clusters. This demonstrates that innovation serves as the endogenous driving force and crucial foundation for the development of digital industrial clusters. As an emerging industrial ecosystem, can digital industrial clusters become the high-quality “soil” for cultivating new quality productivity? However, the existing studies mainly focus on the development strategies of digital industrial clusters and new quality productivity, but lacks in-depth exploration of the relationship between the two. This paper explores the mechanism and optimization pathways through which digital industrial clusters empower new quality productivity. This holds profound strategic significance for accelerating the cultivation of new quality productivity and constructing internationally competitive digital industrial clusters.

This paper treats China's digital industrial cluster pilot policy as a quasi-natural experiment and employs staggered difference-in-differences (DID) approach to empirically examine the impact of digital industrial clusters construction on new quality productivity of enterprises. This paper finds that: (1) The construction of digital industrial clusters significantly promotes new quality productivity of enterprises. From an economic perspective, compared with enterprises in non-pilot districts and counties, the new quality productivity level of enterprises in pilot districts and counties has significantly increased by 8.13% after the implementation of the policy. (2) The mechanism test indicates that there are primarily three pathways through which digital industrial clusters promote the new quality productivity of enterprises: by improving the efficiency of credit and labor allocation to optimize the factor chain, reducing customer and supplier concentration to restructure the supply chain, and fostering integrated innovation to upgrade the innovation chain; (3) The construction of digital industrial clusters has a stronger effect on promoting new quality productivity for enterprises in the eastern region, intellectual property-intensive industries, strategic emerging industries, state-owned enterprises, and smaller-scale enterprises. In addition, the digital industrial cluster pilot policy also promotes the new quality productivity of enterprises in neighboring districts and counties. Based on the above conclusions, this paper offers the following policy implications: First, further enrich and strengthen the policy content and tools for building digital industrial clusters to establish them as the core vehicle for new quality productivity. Second, focus on the heterogeneity of policy effects to enhance the precision and inclusiveness of digital industrial cluster policy. Third, strengthen spillover effects and governance mechanisms to deepen the strategic layout of digital industrial clusters.