The Source of Innovation in China: Highly Innovative Systems

Given the most popular understanding of Chinese comparative advantage is their low labour cost, The Source of Innovation in China argues the fundamental source for Chinese economic growth is its innovation. Based on case studies and surveys collected from 600 firms, this book describes competitive advantages of successful Chinese enterprises, This book discusses the rise of innovation in China and its source for this rapid increasing innovative capability. Focusing on the enterprises' innovation performance, not only technological innovation, but also process and strategy innovation is further debated surrounding the issue. The authors propose a high innovation system for an effective innovation performance in China. After an overview of the competitive advantages of Chinese enterprises based on low cost or on innovation, the book distinguishes different characteristics of Chinese innovation from the angle of organizational innovation type, ambidextrous effects and dynamic perspective of Chinese traditional culture, network-based innovation system, and the organizational innovative human system before discussing the challenges that Chinese enterprises face when they multinationalize overseas. Contrasting popular understanding of Chinese competitive advantages based on low labour, the authors highlight rising power of Chinese high performers in terms of innovation capability. Chinese enterprises' cases are employed for example illustration

"Given the popular belief that China's comparative advantage is its low labour cost, The Source of Innovation in China argues that the fundamental source for Chinese economic growth is its innovation. Based on qualitative case studies and quantitative surveys of 600 firms, this research describes the competitive advantages of successful Chinese enterprises and builds a theoretical framework for innovative firms and empirically tests the resulting hypothesis. The authors explore the general features of Chinese enterprise and innovation, hypothesizing that the rapid economic development in China is based on innovation. This innovation is not only about technological innovation, but also process and strategy innovation. Cases are drawn from technological innovative firms and from traditional labour-intensive industries. Moreover, the underlying source of Chinese innovation is centred on its people, and the authors discuss this by looking at the philosophical, linguistic and culture influences. They take a broad stakeholder perspective and employ social network theory to explain that, by extension, innovative people surround the organization and create organizational values. At the organizational level, they propose a theoretical framework of a High-Innovative Human System, by integrating both Western and Chinese management systems. "--