The development of new quality productivity must strengthen the position of enterprises as the main body of innovation
2026-09-23
The significant characteristic of new quality productivity is innovation. To accelerate the development of new quality productivity, it is necessary to do a good job in innovation. General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized: "Strengthen the position of enterprises as the main body of innovation, build an innovation consortium with close cooperation between upstream and downstream, promote the integration of industry, academia and research innovation, and accelerate the transformation of scientific and technological achievements into real productivity." Enterprises are not only the main bearers of technological innovation, but also the key carriers for promoting the deep integration of innovation chain, industry chain, capital chain, talent chain, and promoting the industrialization and marketization of innovation achievements. Therefore, the development of new quality productive forces must strengthen the position of enterprises as the main body of innovation.
Grasp the Law of Promoting the Development of New Quality Productivity through Enterprise Innovation
General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "New quality productive forces are advanced forms of productive forces that play a leading role in innovation, break away from traditional economic growth models and development paths, have high-tech, high-efficiency, and high-quality characteristics, and conform to the new development concept." "Quality" usually refers to the essential attributes and manifestations of things. The "advanced productivity quality" is reflected in the essential attributes and manifestations of productivity driven by technological innovation in the context of a new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation, including the transformation of laborers, labor objects, labor materials, and their combinations. However, the achievements of technological innovation can only be truly transformed into real productive forces if they are industrialized and applied on a large scale. The development of new quality productivity not only requires a "quality state" driven by technological innovation as its internal support, but also a "format" carried by industrial development as its external carrier. The two together constitute the basic requirements for the formation and development of new quality productivity. This also indicates that the innovation relied upon for the development of new quality productive forces includes not only technological innovation, but also innovation in business models, and even innovation in management and systems.
Enterprises are not only the main body of technological innovation, but also the main body of industrial innovation and development. The "quality" of technological innovation in new quality productivity and the "format" of industrial innovation and development are unified on this innovative subject of enterprises. Among numerous enterprises, due to the heterogeneity in mission positioning, scale, resource endowment, organizational capabilities, and innovation models, the innovation activities formed by different enterprises also exhibit significant differences in originality, breakthrough, and diffusion. That is to say, in the process of promoting the development of new quality productivity through enterprise innovation, different types and characteristics of enterprises play different functional roles and present different main positions. Grasping the heterogeneity of these enterprise innovations, exploring the laws of enterprise innovation and industrial development, is an inevitable requirement for promoting the development of new quality productivity.
According to dimensions such as scale, industry, establishment period, and growth rate, enterprises are classified accordingly, which in turn correspond to different innovation models. Their innovation activities play different roles in the formation of new quality productivity and industrial development processes. Studies have shown that there are significant differences in the types of innovation among enterprises of different sizes: large enterprises tend to engage in smooth and cumulative incremental innovation, which is more conducive to promoting the transformation and upgrading of traditional industrial sectors; Technology oriented small and medium-sized enterprises and startups are more likely to engage in exploratory and breakthrough innovation activities. The latter usually has strong technological originality and discontinuity, which can break through the constraints of existing technological paths and achieve technological paradigm transitions, which is more conducive to promoting the rapid growth of future industrial sectors and strategic emerging industrial sectors.
From the perspective of innovative formats or industrial carrying capacity of new quality productivity, based on the maturity of technology and the laws of industrial life cycle, the development of new quality productivity is reflected in the optimization and upgrading of traditional industries, the cultivation and strengthening of strategic emerging industries, and the innovative development of future industries. Specifically, the future industry is driven by cutting-edge technology and original breakthroughs, and is in the stage of industrial incubation and germination. It has the characteristics of strategic leadership, technological foresight, innovation disruption, and development uncertainty. High growth, high-tech small and medium-sized enterprises represented by gazelle enterprises, unicorn enterprises, etc. generally play an important supporting role in the future development of the industry. These high-tech small and medium-sized enterprises mainly undertake the tasks of technological exploration and trial and error, and their innovation is manifested as primitive disruptive innovation centered on knowledge creation and technological breakthroughs, with the characteristic of "creative destruction", which is precisely the technological innovation demand for future industrial development. Strategic emerging industries are at a critical stage of technological breakthrough and industrialization diffusion. Their core technology path has gradually become clear, and rapid growth has been achieved through large-scale application and industrial ecology construction, presenting strategic, growth oriented, and driving characteristics. In strategic emerging industries, technology-based large and medium-sized enterprises represented by chain leaders and leading enterprises play an important role in innovation support. These enterprises undertake the functions of industrialization and scale diffusion of innovative achievements, and their innovation is manifested as a gradual diffusion innovation that connects technological breakthroughs with industrial upgrading, with the characteristic of "creative accumulation". Traditional industries are based on mature technological systems and are in the mature stage of the industrial life cycle. They have characteristics such as technological stability, large-scale production, and strong industrial foundation, and play an important role in stabilizing the overall economy. Traditional industries are mostly large traditional manufacturing enterprises and small and medium-sized enterprises that support them. The innovation of these enterprises presents a gradual upgrading innovation characteristic of "new technology empowerment", mainly relying on high-end, intelligent, green, and integrated technologies to continuously improve existing technologies and processes, promote product updates and upgrading, and promote deep industrial transformation and upgrading.
Forming an innovative ecosystem for enterprises that is conducive to the development of new quality productivity
The key to developing new quality productive forces and strengthening the dominant position of enterprises in innovation is to form an ecosystem conducive to enterprise innovation. In this ecosystem, enterprises need to be in an "innovation niche" where they can easily access innovative elements and resources. At the same time, an "innovation ecosystem" should be formed between different enterprises and between enterprises and other entities to efficiently collaborate on innovative elements and effectively transmit innovative achievements.
From the perspective of strengthening the effective "innovation niche" of enterprises, it is necessary to enhance the position of enterprises in independent innovation in the entire national innovation system and economic development system, establish and improve institutional mechanisms to promote the aggregation of innovative resources such as funds, projects, platforms, data, and talents to enterprises. In the new national system, it is necessary to strengthen the leading position of enterprise innovation, promote the improvement of the institutional mechanism for enterprises to take the lead in undertaking national scientific and technological research and development tasks, build national scientific and technological innovation platform bases, and form innovation consortia, and give enterprises greater autonomy in formulating technical routes, promoting research and development tasks, selecting participating units, allocating funds, and motivating innovative personnel. Based on the characteristics of different enterprises, assign them appropriate ecological niches in the innovation ecosystem and leverage their innovative strengths in a targeted manner. In promoting the development of strategic emerging industries, support more research institutions affiliated with central enterprises to tackle common industry technologies and key core technologies for industrialization and scale, and use technological innovation to support the leading position of central enterprises in the industrial chain. In the layout of future industries, it is necessary to cultivate and stimulate a large number of technology-based small and medium-sized enterprises, create a more inclusive and encouraging system and social atmosphere for trial and error, and form countless disruptive innovation "trial and error subjects".
A good innovation ecosystem network can effectively connect technological innovation with industrial development, promote the continuous diffusion, absorption, recombination, and re innovation of innovation resources, knowledge capabilities, and technological achievements among different entities, and achieve the continuous evolution of innovation quality towards industrial formats. On the one hand, large leading enterprises and chain owners should be encouraged to open up their supply chain systems, technology platforms, and research and development resources to enhance the inclusiveness and openness of innovation networks; On the other hand, support small and medium-sized enterprises to carry out specialized innovation in segmented fields, and achieve large-scale application of technological achievements through industrial chain collaboration. Promote the construction of industrial innovation alliances, common technology platforms, and knowledge sharing platforms, facilitate efficient flow of innovation resources between enterprises, departments, and industrial chains, and accelerate the formation of a collaborative innovation ecosystem centered on "chain leading enterprises+specialized, refined, and innovative enterprises".
Improve and strengthen the policy system for enhancing the position of enterprises as the main body of innovation
On the one hand, we need to strengthen the supply of inclusive policies and create a policy environment conducive to enterprise innovation and fair competition. The Outline of the 15th Five Year Plan proposes a series of policy measures to support enterprise innovation, including increasing the deduction ratio of R&D expenses, establishing a reserve system for R&D expenses, building a technology finance system that is compatible with scientific and technological innovation, increasing government procurement of independent innovative products, establishing a technology insurance policy system, strengthening the full chain protection of intellectual property rights, coordinating the promotion of government data sharing, public data openness and authorized operation, and comprehensively promoting the empowerment of digital and intelligent technologies, etc. During the 15th Five Year Plan period, we must implement these policies fairly, justly, and pragmatically, and gradually improve the policy system for enterprise innovation.
On the other hand, we must adhere to the coordinated promotion of industrial policies and competition policies, implement classified policies, and guide enterprise innovation behavior according to the situation. Based on the technological innovation characteristics of different types of enterprises, as well as the characteristics of the industrial life cycle stages of future industries, strategic emerging industries, and traditional industries, targeted implementation and exit industry policies should be implemented, competition policies should be coordinated and improved, effective incentive innovation mechanisms should be established, and coordinated development of new and traditional energy industries should be achieved. At present, China's new driving forces represented by artificial intelligence and digital economy are rapidly developing, while the old driving forces mainly consisting of traditional infrastructure and traditional manufacturing industries are deeply adjusted, indicating that the development of new quality productivity based on the deep transformation and upgrading of traditional industries is still insufficient. But attention should be paid to developing new quality productivity according to local conditions, avoiding local governments adopting overly strong industrial policies, especially clarifying that empowering traditional industries with future and emerging technologies is the main battlefield for developing new quality productivity. Only by achieving deep transformation and upgrading of traditional industries can the transformation of old and new driving forces be truly realized. The future industry that relies on a large number of gazelle and unicorn companies for trial and error exploration requires the government to strengthen competition policies and encourage innovation vitality. Government funds can only serve as guiding funds, rather than large-scale direct investment. For strategic emerging industries, the government should not only support enterprise scaling through industrial policies, but also avoid excessive competition and internal competition caused by policy reasons. In the process of transformation and upgrading of traditional industries, the leading role of technological standards is prominent, and industrial policies should focus on standard guidance and supporting encouragement of intelligent and green technologies to empower traditional industry policies. (Outlook New Era)
Author: Huang Qunhui (Researcher at the Institute of Economics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences)
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