ABSTRACT
Data is increasingly considered to be a key component in stimulating innovation (Cockburn, Henderson, and Stern, 2019). Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), with their limited resources internally, particularly face a serious challenge of implementing innovation that depends upon data. The smart city provides an important opportunity for creating data-driven innovation. Significant amounts of data are increasingly available from various sources through sophisticated devices and equipment scattered in smart cities. Many smart city projects across the globe provide rich opportunities for SMEs to explore data-driven innovation (Bresciani, Ferraris, and Del Giudice, 2018). China, in particular, has recently been active in collecting and utilizing various kinds of data in smart cities. The availability of and access to data help to improve the software development of firms in China, where massive amounts of data resources are held by the government (Beraja, Yang, and Yuchtman, 2022).
In this study, we intend to address how data are managed through collaboration between the government and companies in smart cities and how the mode of collaboration influences firms’ performance on innovation. By focusing on the case of SMEs in China, this research aims to shed light on what kinds of data are available and used in smart cities and how the government and enterprises collaborate on data to facilitate innovation. Data on companies are assembled with regard to the registered capital, industry, software products, and patents in 1990-2021 from the database of Tianyancha. A panel data is established with key characteristics of SMEs, software and patents outputs, and their record on government contracts. Our preliminary analysis suggests that many of the government contracts obtained by SMEs that have innovation outputs are concerning platform building.
Organizer: Division of Public Policy (PPOL)