Amid the intensifying global competition in science and technology, breakthrough technological innovation holds the potential to transform industrial technology architectures and disrupt markets. It is a critical strategy for overcoming bottleneck challenges in key technologies and fostering new quality productive forces. Breakthrough innovation involves developing new businesses or production lines by leveraging novel theoretical principles or technological routes, thereby reconstructing existing knowledge and technology to deliver significant economic, social, and ecological benefits. Given its high-risk, high-investment, and complex nature, breakthrough innovation demands substantial resources and collaboration, often beyond the capacity of a single enterprise. This necessitates the formation of innovation consortia to pool complementary resources and capabilities.
Innovation consortia, as carriers of complementary resources, emphasize the leadership role of leading enterprises. They focus on addressing bottleneck technical challenges and conducting original research aligned with national strategic needs. Meanwhile,the governance mechanisms of these consortia can significantly impact the success of breakthrough innovation. The inherent complexity and uncertainty of breakthrough innovation, combined with potential spillover effects, can lead to collective action problems and hidden risks among consortium partners. This "cooperation paradox" often hinders effective collaboration and the realization of key technological breakthroughs. It is also believed that the appropriate governance mechanism chosen by joint research organizations is the key to the success of the alliance , which can ensure the operation of the alliance and realize the value-added effect of cooperation, and help the alliance to carry out breakthrough technological innovation. Therefore, the influence mechanism of the governance mechanism of innovation consortia on breakthrough technology innovation still needs to be further studied. In addition,the government's support for the innovation consortia, from the beginning of the establishment of the innovation consortia, has an impact on the direction of technological research of the innovation consortia, and encourages it to combine its own advantages to perform resource coordination. There is a close relationship between resource coordination ability and government support, both of which are important influencing factors for innovation consortia to carry out breakthrough technological innovation. Therefore, this paper focuses on exploring the mediating effect of resource collaboration and the moderating effect of government support on the relationship between the governance mechanism of innovation consortia and breakthrough technology innovation.
This study collected relevant data on innovation consortia in the Jiangsu region through a questionnaire survey. Based on the pilot list of innovation consortia proposed by the Jiangsu Provincial Department of Science and Technology for the period of 2022—2023, as well as lists released by science and technology departments in various cities within Jiangsu, 40 innovation consortia were selected. These consortia primarily cover key areas such as integrated circuits, high-end equipment manufacturing, new materials, and green environmental protection. The respondents included the chief scientists of each consortium, representatives from participating units, and the heads of the human resources departments of the leading units. This selection ensured the accuracy and authority of the collected data. Ultimately, 268 valid questionnaires were obtained, yielding a response validity rate of 67%.
This paper, for the first time, approaches the topic from a governance perspective, combining transaction cost theory and relational exchange theory to examine the impact mechanism of the innovation consortia on resource orchestration and breakthrough technological innovation. The empirical analysis on the moderating effect of government support indicates that both innovation consortia with contractual governance and those with relational governance contribute to promoting breakthrough technological innovation performance, with relational governance having a greater effect than contractual governance. Resource orchestration partially mediates the relationship between governance mechanism of the innovation consortia and breakthrough technological innovation. Government support positively moderates the relationship between both types of governance within Innovation Consortia and resource orchestration, with a more significant moderating effect on relational governance.