How Does Successful Catch-Up Occur in Complex Products and Systems from the Innovation Ecosystem Perspective? A Case of China’s High-Speed Railway

• Published in: Sustainability 2022-07, Vol.14 (13), p.7930
• Main Authors: Yang, Zhongji, Qi, Liangqun, Li, Xin, Wang, Tianxi
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Aircraft; Ecosystems; Emerging markets; Environmental economics; Innovations; Nuclear power plants; Strategic management; Subsystems; Sustainability; Sustainable development; Value creation
• ISSN: 2071-1050; 2071-1050
• DOI: 10.3390/su14137930

Successful catch-up is an important channel to achieve sustainable development for emerging economies; however, it is a great challenge to catch up in complex products and systems (CoPS). Studies show limited evidence on how successful catch-up occurred in CoPS for emerging economies. This study holds the view that CoPS catch-up means a narrower gap in the innovation ecosystem between latecomers and leaders. This study disentangles the CoPS innovation ecosystem and uses China’s high-speed railway (HSR) as a longitudinal case with abundant data to explore how successful catch-up in CoPS is achieved. The results show that the CoPS innovation ecosystem presents a dynamic evolution in the technology innovation subsystem, the value creation subsystem, and the habitat. Four types of forces from the innovation ecosystem mix together to drive CoPS catch-up. Finally, this study proposes a CoPS catch-up process model following the basic logic of start point, activities, and performance, and CoPS industrial standards are used to measure CoPS catch-up performance. The study on CoPS catch-up from an innovation ecosystem perspective provides new insights and useful implications for governments and entities in CoPS of emerging economies.