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Regional Science & Technology and Innovation

Driving Factors and Configuration Paths for Enhancing Regional  Advanced Manufacturing Industries 

—A Qualitative Comparative Analysis of 30 Cities 

Du Baogui, Liu Zhiliang 

(School of Humanities and Law, Northeastern University, Shenyang 110169, China)

Abstract: The vigorous development of the advanced manufacturing industry is of great sig⁃ nificance for China to implement the innovation-driven development strategy and promote eco⁃ nomic transformation and upgrading. However, there are currently disparities in the development  levels of advanced manufacturing industries across different regions of China. This study aims to  explore the driving factors, causal configurations, and various development pathways of the highlevel regional advanced manufacturing industry from a holistic perspective, to deepen the under⁃ standing of the complexities involved in the high-level development process of regional ad⁃ vanced manufacturing industry and provide reference suggestions for promoting the development  of this industry in various regions of China. Based on the Technology—Organization—Environment (TOE) theoretical model, seven fac⁃ tors were selected to construct an analytical framework. These factors include: regional economic  development level, regional innovation capability, regional R&D investment intensity, regional  information infrastructure development level, regional supply-side policy tool investment inten⁃ sity, regional environmental policy tool investment intensity, and regional demand-side policy  tool investment intensity. These factors were categorized into three levels: environment, organiza⁃ tion, and technology. Using the fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) method, theconditional configuration analysis was carried out on the panel data from 30 advanced manufac⁃ turing cities in China and the investment intensity scores for policy tools derived from a threedimensional evaluation framework that considers policy tools, intensity, and scope. This analysis  aimed to explore the causal configurations and different development pathways that can promote  the high-level development of the regional advanced manufacturing industry. The study found that there is no single factor that solely drives the high-level development  of the regional advanced manufacturing industry; instead, the interaction and cooperation of mul⁃ tiple factors are required. It identified five combinations of causal pathways that lead to the highlevel development and summarized three high-level development models for the regional ad⁃ vanced manufacturing industry, namely "resource endowment type", "single tool type", and "tool  balance type". Among these, the core conditions are the regional economic development level  and innovation capability. Given these two favorable conditions, there is a degree of substitutabil⁃ ity among the driving factors including the construction of information infrastructure, the inten⁃ sity of R&D investment, and the investment of three types of policy tools. The study deepens the understanding of the complexities involved in developing the re⁃ gional advanced manufacturing industry. It addresses the previous tendency to focus solely on a  limited number of factors, providing a more comprehensive perspective for the study of these in⁃ dustries. By combining the TOE theoretical framework with the fsQCA method, the study not  only innovatively introduced the policy tool analysis, but also quantified and evaluated the inten⁃ sity of the regional policy tool by creating a three-dimensional scoring framework that considers  policy tools, policy intensity, and policy scope, making up for the deficiencies of traditional re⁃ search methods in analyzing the interactions between factors and evaluating policy effects. In ad⁃ dition, the research conclusions enrich the understanding of the development model of the re⁃ gional advanced manufacturing industry and help regions in better allocating resources and im⁃ proving development efficiency during the growth of their advanced manufacturing industry. 

Key words: regional advanced manufacturing industry; three-dimensional evaluation; fsQCA; TOE theoretical framework; driving factors; configuration paths