Emerging geography of technological innovation in China's ICT industry: Region, inter-firm linkages and innovative performance in a transitional economy

This study critically evaluates the relevance of the existing theory of technological innovation to the case of China's information and communications technology industry. Based on a large-scale questionnaire survey conducted in China's three most important city-regions, namely, Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, where the core of China's information and communications technology industry is located, this study reveals a significant regional variation in technological innovation in a political economy undergoing marketisation and globalisation. This research has found no significant relationship between the innovative performance of firms and the extent of production linkages; nor was there a significant knowledge exchange among firms. A further analysis has identified the significant role played by government purchases, research and development capital input and export propensity in the process of technological innovation. The findings of this research cast doubts over the prevailing theory of new economic geography' in which soft and unbounded relational assets have been overemphasised at the expense of some solid and bounded actors and agents that are pivotal to technological innovation in a developing economy.