The Adoption of Certification Policy for Gazelle Enterprises in China: A Bottom‐Up Approach

ABSTRACT As a measure to cultivate innovative firms, a certification has been introduced and spread rapidly in many Chinese cities. We use data of Chinese prefecture‐level cities from 2008 to 2019 and investigate the causes of the adoption of the policy. Events such as term expirations (TEs) and cadres exchanges (CEs) are considered as potential internal causes, whereas pressure from peers and seniors is considered as potential external cause. A panel data model is used to analyze the causes of adoption. We find that, first, both TE and CE significantly promote adoption. Second, peer pressures significantly promote adoption but pressures from seniors do not. Third, TE significantly promotes adoption in northern China and CE significantly promotes adoption in southern China.