The impact of industry-university-research collaboration on innovation in lead firms

Building on theoretical analysis, this study employed firm-level data from China's A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen in 2022 and applied a fixed effects model to investigate the impact and underlying mechanisms of industry-university-research (IUR) collaboration on the innovation performance of "lead firms" in the supply chain. The findings revealed that IUR collaboration significantly enhanced innovation in "lead firms", and the results remained robust after addressing endogeneity concerns and conducting a series of robustness checks. Mechanism analysis revealed that the integration of industry, academia, and research could significantly enhance the innovation effectiveness of "lead firms" enterprises by increasing the number of researchers and expanding the board size. Heterogeneity analysis suggested that the innovation-enhancing effects of IUR collaboration varied across regions and firm-specific characteristics.