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Keywords

technological innovation policy, equipment manufacturing industry, producer service industry, technical efficiency, SFA, fsQCA

Abstract

The enhancement of the value-added in the equipment manufacturing industry constitutes a significant force driving the high-quality development of the national economy. Influenced by changes in the international environment and domestic development imbalances, China's equipment manufacturing sector is grappling with a triple challenge involving high-tech bottlenecks, the depletion of demographic dividends, and regional disparities. Overcoming this predicament necessitates the mutual integration of the equipment manufacturing industry and producer services, facilitating the transition and upgrade of industrial dynamics. Scholars widely concur that the crux of this industrial integration lies in technological innovation and its dissemination. Serving as the intrinsic impetus behind industrial synergy, technological innovation acts as a “potent remedy” to surmount industry hardships, while concurrently acting as a “catalyst” to facilitate deep integration with the producer service sector. Termed the “industrial mother engine,” the equipment manufacturing industry is characterized by labor, capital, and technology-intensive operations, significantly impacting employment, investment, and technological advancement. Its extensive scope surpasses the capacities of individual enterprises, necessitating the rational allocation of societal resources through governmental policies. Thus, constructing scientifically effective technological innovation policies to bolster industrial innovation integration and optimizing policy systems and supporting institutional frameworks has emerged as a pressing focal point. Drawing on panel data from 2009 to 2018, this study employs the stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) and dynamic fsQCA methods to quantitatively scrutinize the technical efficiency of equipment manufacturing and producer service integration across 30 Chinese provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions (excluding Tibet due to data limitations). Additionally, it assesses the impact of technological innovation policies on industrial integration. Utilizing a policy combination approach, the configuration theory is applied to analyze the effects of technological innovation policy combinations on integration efficiency over multiple periods. This analysis unveils and compares the evolutionary development of technological innovation policies, entailing multi-period nonlinear growth, and influencing industrial integrations technical efficiency. Key conclusions are drawn from this research. Firstly, the integration of the equipment manufacturing industry with producer services is an outcome contingent upon the synergistic interaction of several antecedent conditions, comprising diverse configurations. Singular conditions are inadequate to foster high integration technical efficiency. Secondly, a comprehensive government policy portfolio, encompassing robust scientific and technological support alongside non-high government procurement, emerges as a general pattern according to the overall analysis of dynamic fsQCA condition configurations. Thirdly, examining cases of three-stage exemplary provinces reveals that the configuration of high integration technical efficiency evolves over time, progressing from a state of desperation to comprehensive integration and ultimately to a state of internal cohesion and external flexibility. This study offers a theoretical foundation to guide China's future implementation of a “combination punch” approach to technological innovation policy. It enriches the comprehensiveness and systematization of research concerning the integration process between the equipment manufacturing industry and the producer service sector. These findings are of great significance for governmental efforts in devising technological innovation policies to invigorate the equipment manufacturing industry and foster industrial integration. The fusion of China's equipment manufacturing industry and producer service sector demands a strategy of dynamic developmental policy combinations, tailored to diverse regional contexts and developmental stages. This strategy should seamlessly amalgamate supply-oriented, demand-oriented, and environmentally-focused technological innovation policies. Concurrently, adapting to local conditions is crucial to heightening the alignment between technological innovation policy combinations and the technical efficiency levels of regional industrial integration. Strengthened coordination among governmental departments, ensuring the rationality and systematic nature of policy coordination, enabling swift response and timely policy revisions, will culminate in a potent instrument to precisely propel the integrated development of the equipment manufacturing industry and the producer service sector.

DOI

10.16315/j.stm.2024.01.003

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