| With the increasing demand for clean energy in the international community and the faster and more convenient knowledge exchange in the information age,green emerging technologies such as fuel cell technology have developed rapidly.Under the background of the country's vigorous promotion of innovation-driven development strategies,cities have an urgent need for the development of new technology.Thus the impact of local base on the development of new technologies has become an important practical issue.However,there is still some debate about the relationship between local knoeledge base and new technology innovation.The "Windows of Locational Opportunity" emphasizes the "freedom" of the new technology development,while the "Regional Branching" considers that factors such as the relevance to the existing knowledge base and geographical proximity have a significant impact on the innovation of new technologies.In the discussion of the relationship between knowledge base and new technology innovation,the "Related Diversity" hypothesis is a current research hotspot in the field of economic geography and provides a new way of thinking for the division of knowledge base.It is consided that technological development is a "dynamic change" in the "Life Cycle Theory".Based on the evolutionary perspective,the relationship changes between knowledge base and innovation should be rationally regarded when the attributes of a new technology are gradually changing from "new" to "old".Inspired by the "Collaborative Innovation Theory",attention should be paid to the impact of interaction between different knowledge on technological innovation.By defining the concept of technology innovation,this paper argues that "technological innovation" should be defined from the process view of "technology innovation".It is meaning that technological innovation should be included three parts such as technical knowledge production,technical knowledge diffusion and technical knowledge application.And the research through the process view of "technical innovation" is more helpful in understanding the complex connections between knowledge base and technological innovation.However,the fuel cell technology has not yet entered the stage of large-scale commercialization.The article mainly explores the impact of knowledge base on the two major aspects of technology innovation: the production and the diffusion of technical knowledge.The influence of technology relevance on innovation is emphasized in the theory of "Regional Branching",and the "Relevant Diversity" hypothesis considers that the relevant diversity is important for innovation.So in this paper,the city technical knowledge base is divided into two categories of "related technical knowledge base" and "irrelated technical knowledge base",together with the "relevant scientific knowledge base",forming an important knowledge base of three types of cities.Using data analysis,mapping and spatial analysis software such as Stata,SPSS,Gephi,Visio,CorelDRAW,ArcGIS,etc.,from the perspective of evolution,this study depicts the spatial distribution and evolution of the fuel cell technology innovation and various knowledge bases in the 291 prefecturelevel cities of China by the "pattern,influence,mechanism" paradigm of regional economics.It can be analyzed that the relationship between knowledge base and fuel cell technology innovation by using the spatial autoregressive methods.The conclusions are as follows:First,different knowledge bases in early cities have different performances for fuel cell technology innovations,which makes the location of the new technology relatively free.In terms of the advantages and disadvantages of the knowledge base,in general,developed cities have advantages on the relevant scientific knowledge base.While,on the technical knowledge base,the technical categories of developed cities are more complete than those of backward cities.So developed cities both have advantages in the relevant technical knowledge base and irrelevant technical knowledge base.However,in the early stage of the development of new technologies,the excessive accumulation of irrelevant technical knowledge may make the city's ability to absorb new technological knowledge decline,resulting in the crowding out effect.Thus,the relevant scientific knowledge base and related technical knowledge base of developed cities have produced "gravitational force" for the development of new technologies,while the irrelevant knowledge base advantages of developed cities have produced "repulsive force" for the development of new technologies in the early stage.It is precisely because of the coexistence of the "gravitational force" and "repulsive force" that the development of new technologies has a certain degree of freedom in space.This study critically responds to the debate between the "Windows of Locational Opportunity" and the "Regional Branching" on the relationship between new technology innovation and knowledge base.This study holds that the views of these two theories have both correctness and limitation in the era of knowledge economy.On the one hand,the development of information technology makes the long-distance knowledge exchange more convenient.In the early stage of new technology development,innovators tend to enhance their innovation ability by expanding the scope of knowledge search,and the role of geographical proximity is weakened at this time.On the other hand,with the increasing complexity of the technological structure in the era of knowledge economy,technological innovation needs to rely on more and more knowledge reserves.Therefore,the relationship between the development of new technologies and the knowledge base is showing an increasingly tight trend.Under the circumstance that there is a significant connection between the recognized knowledge base and the new technology innovation,this study believes that the early different knowledge bases have positive and negative effects on new technology innovation.It is the reason both for the relative "freedom" of new technologies in space and tending to gather in developed cities,which provides new perspectives and basis for the development of new technologies in space.Second,technology relevance is a key element influencing the relationship between knowledge base and fuel cell technology innovation.The relevant scientific knowledge base and technical knowledge base have a significant impact on the technological innovation of fuel cells at different stages.But the impact of irrelevant technical knowledge base may change over time.The irrelevant technical knowledge base has negative impact on technical knowledge absorption capacity of the fuel cells in the first phase(2000-2005).While,in the third stage(2011-2016),the irrelevant knowledge base has a positive impact on the technical knowledge production and technical knowledge absorption capacity of the fuel cells.In the development process of fuel cell technology,the technical field has been expanded,which has gradually become associated with some unrelated technical knowledge bases.In this process,the negative impact of irrelevant knowledge base on technological innovation is gradually reduced,and ultimately has a positive impact.Part of the irrelevant knowledge base gradually becomes the relevant knowledge base in this process,so the negative impact of irrelevant knowledge base on technological innovation is gradually reduced,and ultimately has a positive impact.Moreover,between 2000 and 2016,the fuel cell invention patent cited 262 IPC technology categories in addition to the 15 major related technology categories,with an average of 15.4 new citation categories per year,and the number of citations increased from 18 in 2000 to 1725 in 2016.It can be seen that from the perspective of evolution,the change of technology relevance is a key factor that changes the relationship between technical knowledge base and technological innovation.This study believes that in the development of new technologies,the correlation between technologies is gradually changing by radical innovation,especially the development of new technologies is driven by radical innovation.Although its speed is slow,the absolute limits of "related" and "irrelated" can be broken.Therefore,this study believes that the relationship between "related diversity" and "irrelevant diversity" should be viewed dynamically.They both can ultimately have a positive impact on technological innovation,so it may be misleading to look at irrelated diversity in opposition to relevant diversity.Thus,the results criticize Frenken's view of the role of "irrelevant diversity" in the "Relevant Diversity" hypothesis,which was proposed in 2007.Third,the combination of knowledge bases is significant for fuel cell technological innovation.The combination of the relevant scientific knowledge base,the relevant technical knowledge base and the irrelevant technical knowledge base have a significant positive impact on the technological innovation of fuel cells.In addition,the impact of relevant technical and scientific knowledge base on fuel cell technology knowledge production,absorption capacity,and spillover ability is significantly positive.Under the influence of combination,the degree of significance of relevant technical and science knowledge base is lower than that of its individual role.Therefore,it can be considered that the relevant technical and scientific knowledge base tend to exert some influence on fuel cell technology innovation through the combination of forms.That is,the channel effect of related technical and scientific knowledge base on fuel cell technology innovation exists.The research further estimates that the relevant technical and scientific knowledge base can enhance each other's marginal benefits to technological innovation.So the mutual benefit of the two knowledge bases exists,which explains the phenomenon of the combined channel effect.From the perspective of technology correlation,this study critically responds to the debate on the relationship between knowledge base and new technology innovation in the "Windows of Locational Opportunity" and "Regional Branching".It believes that the difference in the impact of new technology innovation,involved in different early knowledge bases,is an important reason for the relative freedom of new technology development.On the other hand,this study criticizes Frenken's expression of "irrelevant diversity" in the "Related Diversity" hypothesis,and believes that the radical innovations generated in the process of new technology development can break the boundaries between "related" and "unrelated".Ultimately,"related diversity" and "irrelevant diversity" both can contribute to technological innovation.At the same time,this study reveals the advantages and disadvantages of the city's knowledge base in developing new technologies,which provides reference for cities to formulate new technology development policies. |
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