Innovation performance and influencing factors of low-carbon technological innovation under the global value chain: A case of Chinese manufacturing industry

Abstract

Combing the global value chain framework and linear innovation process model, this paper analyzes the innovation performance of low-carbon technological innovation activities under the global value chain and the influencing factors. Other than previous research on sustainable technological innovation with major focus on radical innovation and socio-technical system transitions activities, this paper places focus on the general innovation characteristics of low-carbon technologies through an integrating view of global value chain and linear innovation process. This paper proposes an analytical framework of the linear innovation process under the global value chain, and uses factor analysis and a DEA-Tobit two-stage method to analyze the low-carbon technological innovation performance and its influencing factors of China's manufacturing industry under global value chain. The results show that the low-carbon technological innovation performance is diverse across different manufacturing industries in China. Moreover, among the three major influencing factors, government regulation is the only factor that shows a positive influence on low-carbon technological innovation performance, yet the effect is quite weak. Technology push displays a negative effect, and the impact of market pull on low-carbon technological innovation performance is not significant.