Research on the Impact of Science and Technology Innovation Policies on the Innovation Performance of Intelligent Manufacturing Enterprises - An Exploration Based on the Dynamic QCA Approach

Smart manufacturing and artificial intelligence have spurred China's production growth of patents in recent years, therefore signaling the impact of innovation policies. Nevertheless, comparisons with developed countries highlight disparities, thereby necessitating an examination of how innovation policies of smart manufacturing affect firms' innovation capability. On the basis of dynamic QCA and random forest regression models, this research investigates the combined effect of significant policy variables (government subsidies, human resource inputs, tax incentives, financial support, and government procurement) on innovation performance of 193 smart manufacturing firms in China between (2016-2023).The random forest model emphasizes the leading role of tax incentives in innovation and feature importance analysis also confirms their over-whelming influence.Apart from that, this study finds three policy channels: The first one is referred to as 'fiscal pull' and is characterized by government subsidies and tax incentives. The second path is 'environmental support' and is marked by fiscal encouragement as well as financial assistance. The third path is prevailing in the central and western regions.The research confirms that fiscal encouragement and structures of financial assistance have a strong influence on regional innovation policies. The research provides differentiated policy proposals for different eco-nomic regions.The paper adds to the policy-mechanism literature of innovation and provides helpful proposals for policymakers.