Zihanxin Li

China’s economic growth is transforming from being traditional and factor-driven to being innovation-driven. How to improve the independent innovation ability and build the sustainable competitiveness of enterprises through knowledge transfer in industry–university–research-institute (IUR) cooperation has become an urgent problem to be solved. The obstacles to knowledge transfer in an IUR cooperation include internal and external cooperation risk factors. Improving the governance mechanism of an IUR cooperation, reducing cooperation risks, and promoting knowledge transfer are effective means for overcoming such obstacles in the short term. Interorganizational governance mechanisms include contractual governance and relationship governance. Obvious differences exist in the target functions of the different types of governance mechanisms, and their effects on knowledge transfer also differ. Based on a questionnaire survey on the IUR cooperation innovation of 364 enterprises, this study discusses the impact of the contractual governance mechanism and relationship governance mechanism on knowledge transfer in the IUR cooperation. Different types of contractual governance mechanisms have different effects on knowledge transfer. The contractual coordination mechanism significantly promotes explicit knowledge transfer in an IUR cooperation but has no significant impact on tacit knowledge transfer, whereas the contractual control mechanism significantly promotes explicit knowledge transfer but hinders tacit knowledge transfer. Meanwhile, the relationship governance mechanism has a significant positive impact on explicit knowledge transfer and tacit knowledge transfer. The joint use of the contractual coordination mechanism and relationship governance mechanism can significantly promote explicit knowledge transfer and tacit knowledge transfer, whereas the joint use of the contractual control mechanism and relationship governance mechanism can significantly weaken the two types of knowledge transfer. This study provides not only a theoretical explanation for the dispute over the “complementarity” or “substitution” relationship between the contractual governance mechanism and relationship governance mechanism in knowledge transfer in an IUR cooperation, thereby enriching relationship governance theory and knowledge management theory, but also a reference to the government, enterprises, and universities/scientific institutions participating in an IUR cooperation.

How to realize the sustainable development of the industry-university-research institute (IUR) collaboration innovation ecosystem has become a key factor restricting the independent innovation capability of Chinese enterprises. Knowledge transfer performance is a key consideration in the process of R&D collaboration between companies and research institutes; how to improve the performance of knowledge transfer depends on the matching between the partners of IUR collaboration. This article seeks to explore the influence mechanism of partner differences in the industry-university-research institute collaboration on the performance of knowledge transfer from the perspective of enterprises. Specifically, the study explores the moderating effect of technical knowledge difference and goal difference on the relationship between absorptive capacity, learning willingness, and knowledge transfer performance. The study applied the partial least squares structural equation modeling approach to model these relationships, based on survey data gathered from 211 Chinese firms. The results show that the goal difference of industry-university-research institute collaboration partners has a negative moderating effect on the relationship between learning willingness, absorptive capacity, and knowledge transfer performance. The greater the degree of goal difference, the lower the role of the enterprise’s learning willingness and absorptive capacity to promote knowledge transfer performance. Technical knowledge difference has a significant inverted U-shaped effect on the relationship between absorptive capacity and knowledge transfer performance: a high degree of technical knowledge difference weakens the effects of absorptive capacity on knowledge transfer performance, while a low degree of technical knowledge difference will also negatively moderate the effects of absorptive capacity on knowledge transfer performance. The research conclusions provide scientists, government bodies, and decision makers with the necessary information for a better understanding of the effective mechanism of sustainable knowledge transfer in the IUR innovation ecosystem.

With the rapid development of the digital economy, understanding the relationship between the digital economy and the environment is increasingly important for sustainable development. This study mainly studies the nexus of digital economy development and environmental quality for 217 cities in China from 2003 to 2018. Specifically, this study first evaluates the degree of coupling coordination between the digital economy system and the environmental system. Results show that the coupling coordination degree between the digital economy system and the environmental system shows a fluctuating rise from 2003 to 2018. Furthermore, this study empirically investigates the impact of digital economy development on PM2.5, which represents environmental quality, and results show that digital economy development significantly reduces PM2.5. The above finding is still valid by using the quasi-natural experiment of broadband China for the robustness test. Urbanization, population density, and economic development have caused threshold effects. When the urbanization rate and population density exceed a certain threshold, the digital economy significantly inhibits PM2.5. In contrast, when the per capita GDP exceeds a certain threshold, the digital economy significantly promotes PM2.5. The digital economy mainly affects pollutant emissions through direct and technological effects.