Industrial innovation networks in Taiwan and China: A comparative analysis

This paper compares the structure of inter-industrial and extra-industrial innovation networks in the innovation systems of Taiwan and China. First, we examine patterns of product R&D diffusion in each system using the input–output approach and conducting a structural comparison based on network analysis. Second, we investigate the innovative interactions among the industrial, institutional, and foreign sub-systems of each national system to explore their substitutability or complementarity relationships. Analysis results show that China's innovation system is stimulated through the public sectors, so the influence of institutional sub-systems exceeds that of industrial sub-systems. In contrast, inter-industrial innovation flows in Taiwan are more efficient than those in China, making Taiwan's interfaces between industrial and institutional sub-systems quite restricted. These two results demonstrate that a substitutability relationship exists between industrial and institutional sub-systems. Moreover, both countries, but especially China, have an inward imbalance of technological payments, which relates their international orientation to their internal connectivity in a substitutability relationship.