Research on the Governance Mechanism of Independent Innovation Network in the Core Area of Silk Road Economic Belt

The increasing competition in global scientific and technological innovation and the continuous promotion of the “Belt and Road initiatives” have created new opportunities for the improvement in innovation capabilities in the core area of the Silk Road Economic Belt but have also brought new challenges. This paper first starts from the market and government perspective and sorts out the formation mechanism of an innovation network. Subsequently, based on the development practice of the innovation network in the core area of the Silk Road Economic Belt, we applied the grounded theory to reveal the development constraints of the innovation network in the core area and explore the corresponding network governance mechanism. Subsequently, we applied a survey study to test our conceptual model. We empirically found the innovation network structure governance and innovation relation governance impacting mechanism in a market-led and government guidance context. The study found that: first, the market-led environment and government guidance jointly impact the formation of an innovation network. Second, the network structure governance and network relation governance of the innovation network can address the development constraints faced by the current innovation network to a certain extent, thereby improving the firm’s innovation performance. Finally, it is found that both the market-led environment and government guidance play a positive role in regulating the impact of network structure governance and network relation governance on the firm’s innovation performance. The above conclusions expand the application scenarios of innovation network governance theory in underdeveloped areas and, at the same time, provide new theoretical knowledge increments for the formation mechanism of innovation networks and also provide corresponding theoretical guidance for the improvement of the firm’s innovation performance in the core area.