The joint paper “Resource Allocation Model of Major Engineering Innovation Ecosystem under the New National System: Evidence from Technological Innovation of the Hong Kong Zhuhai Macao Bridge” was published in China’s top journal “Management World” by Professor HE Qinghua, PhD student QIN Liumiao and Associate Professor WANG Ge from the School of Public Administration of Chongqing University. The paper was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China’s general project “Identification of Success Factors for Major Engineering Projects, Dual Drive and Organisational Adaptability Research” (71971161), led by Professor HE Qinghua.

Journal: Management World, Issue 5, 2024, pp. 192-211

Authors: WANG Ge (School of Public Policy and Administration, Chongqing University and Antai College of Economics & Management, Shanghai Jiao Tong University), QIN LIU miao (School of Economics and Management, Tongji University), ZENG Saixing (Antai College of Economics & Management,Shanghai Jiao Tong University), LIU Bingsheng (School of Economics and Management, Hebei University of Technology), HE Qinghua (School of Economics and Management, Tongji University), and WANG Tao (School of Public Policy and Administration, Chongqing University)

Keywords: new national system, major projects, innovative ecosystem, resource allocation

Introduction to the core content of the paper:

In the context of a new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation, it’s an important way to achieve technological breakthroughs in key areas by effectively utilizing the resource integration capabilities of the new national system to accomplish major tasks. In major engineering and technological breakthroughs, various innovation units have formed a complex innovation ecosystem to address technological challenges and seek solutions. Existing research has elucidated the connotation, logic and role of the new national system in major engineering and technological innovation from a macro-theoretical perspective, achieving insightful and inspiring results, which laid an important foundation for this study. However, there is a lack of micro-empirical research on the new national system and major projects, and there is an urgent need to explore from a resource perspective how different innovative entities can promote the emergence of innovative value through different resource allocation models. Based on the resource perspective, this article attempts to integrate the resource-based view, the resource-dependent view and the resource-action view to reveal the emergence of diversified resource allocation models with high innovation value in the major engineering innovation ecosystem under the new national system.

The Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge is a microcosm of the technological innovation in the field of major transportation infrastructure engineering under the new national system, moving from quantitative accumulation to qualitative leap. Considering the availability of antecedent data such as resource base, resource dependence structure, and resource management actions, this article takes 102 innovative entities jointly applying for patents on the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge as the research sample. Specifically, this article applies the fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) method to explore the configuration effects of the resource base, resource dependence structure, and resource management actions of major engineering innovation entities under the new national system on the emergence of innovation value. It reveals the diverse resource allocation models that emerge with high innovation value. The research framework is shown in Figure 1. Furthermore, considering that innovative entities form complex collaborative networks in the process of resource integration, this paper applies the Exponential Random Graph Model (ERGM) method in the field of complex network analysis to explore the process of promoting the emergence of innovative value through the new national system in promoting diversified resource allocation models. This article reveals four types of resource allocation models with high innovation value, namely “collaborative-co-creation”, “aggregation-breakthrough”, “extension -transformation”, and “skillful utilization-efficiency”. For the four types of resource allocation models, the new national system mainly promotes the emergence of innovative value through the organic combination of government strategic deployment and information coordination, market competition mechanism and supply and demand mechanism. This article expands the research on innovation management in major engineering projects, providing theoretical and practical inspiration for effectively relying on the new national system and rational allocation of resources to overcome technical difficulties.