| In recent years,China’s economic development has primarily relied on science and technological innovation,forming a virtuous cycle of innovation-driven development and shifting from merely pursuing growth rates to focusing on high-quality development.Against this backdrop,many start-ups,such as NIO,Pinduoduo and CATL,have gradually emerged in the market as the front-runners of breakthrough innovation,demonstrating their unique competitive advantages.Compared to mature firms,start-ups,as firms in the initial stage,often have strong motivations to innovate,but their resource-disadvantaged attributes can constrain their innovative behavior.As a result,this has led to an interest in research on the innovation and entrepreneurship process of start-ups in both the academic and business communities.A first-class innovation ecosystem can promote the synergistic symbiosis of innovation elements,facilitate the integration of innovation resources,and promote the matching of resources and environment,which is the basis for China to achieve high-quality development.Existing research has reached a consensus on the innovation ecosystems to provide firms with complementary resources and promote value creation.It has begun to focus on model differences in innovation ecosystems,proposing a range of segmented models,such as hub-based innovation ecosystems,crowdsourcing ecosystems,and digital innovation ecosystems.However,most studies still regard innovation ecosystems as homogeneous systems.In addition,due to the different focus of the segmentation models,there is often an overlap between the concepts.Some scholars have shifted their research interests to explore the dual structure of innovation ecosystem segmentation models.Furthermore,most of the existing studies have studied innovation ecosystems from a static perspective,and most of them have taken mature enterprises as the research objects.There is a lack of valuable studies that take a dynamic perspective and start-ups as the object of study.Based on the above background,this paper explores the role paths and influence mechanisms of embedment innovation ecosystems on the innovative performance of startups as well as the dynamic evolution process of the embedment innovation ecosystem of start-ups based on theories such as resource-based view,dynamic capabilities and coevolutionary theory.Mainly as follows:At first,this research classifies the innovation ecosystem models based on resource acquisition into the platform-and product-based innovation ecosystem.And then,the research chooses dynamic capabilities as the mediating variable and firm age as the moderating variable to explore the paths of embedding two types of innovation ecosystems on the innovative performance of start-ups.The findings show that: Embedding in both platform-and product-based innovation ecosystems positively impact start-ups’ innovative performance.The choice of embedding in different innovation ecosystems by start-ups of different sizes has a differential impact on their innovative performance,revealing the link between resource thresholds and the innovation of start-ups.It also validates the "innovation ecosystem-dynamic capabilities-innovative performance" path and points to the mediating role of dynamic capabilities in embedding the path of innovation ecosystem on the innovative performance of start-ups.Besides,firm age plays an inverted U-shaped moderating role between the platform-based innovation ecosystem and the innovative performance of start-ups and a positive moderating role between the product-based innovation ecosystem and the innovative performance of start-ups.Besides,this study continues the classification of innovation ecosystems and explores the moderating effects of open innovation strategies and shared cognitive capital on the relationships between embedded innovation ecosystems and innovative performance of start-ups.The findings show that: Open innovation breadth positively moderates the impact of platform-based innovation ecosystem on innovative performance of start-ups,while inverted U-shape moderates the impact of product-based innovation ecosystem on innovative performance of start-ups.Shared cognitive capital,including shared value and shared vision,both positively moderate the positive relationships between embedded innovation ecosystems and innovative performance of start-ups.In addition,based on the static research mentioned above,this research follows the logic of "condition-action-result" from the perspective of dynamic evolutionary,and connects the enterprise life cycle with the acquisition of the resource.CATL is selected as the single case study object,to explore the stage-by-stage relationships between start-ups and innovation ecosystems,to clarify the internal and external factors affecting their evolutionary process,and to systematically analyze the evolutionary transmission mechanism of start-ups embedded in the innovation ecosystems.It finds that: The synergy between the development stages and resources acquisition methods are the driving force for startups to "embed in the product-based innovation ecosystem-embed in the platform-based innovation ecosystem-build the platform-based innovation ecosystem".The coupling of the institutional and market contexts is the external motivation that promotes the evolution of the enterprise innovation ecosystem.The advancement of dynamic capabilities from "scanning ability-perception ability-innovation ability-integration ability" is the internal basis for realizing the evolution of the enterprise innovation ecosystem.Start-ups and heterogeneous innovation ecosystems,contexts factors,dynamic capabilities of continuous recursive feedback promote the innovation ecosystem transition towards the "build-deepen-broaden",to realize value co-creation.Ultimately,based on the findings,we also propose countermeasures and recommendations in two directions: enhancing the innovative performance of start-ups and dynamically building innovation ecosystems for start-ups.To improve their innovative performance,start-ups should actively embed in heterogeneous innovation ecosystems,strengthen the cultivation of dynamic capabilities,and enhance the synergy between embedded innovation ecosystems and open innovation strategies and shared cognitive capital.Besides,to build a mature innovation ecosystem,start-ups should track changes in external contexts,strengthen the development and stockpiling of resources and technologies,and focus on the collaborative cultivation of feed-forward and feedback learning of dynamic capabilities.In addition,the government should adopt a series of policies to build a development environment suitable for the innovation of start-ups. |
