Configurational Pathways to High-Quality Development of Specialized Industrial Parks: An fsQCA analysis in China

Specialized industrial parks (SIPs) have become important spatial carriers for fostering industrial upgrading, innovation diffusion, and sustainable development in the context of technological transformation. However, the configurational mechanisms through which SIPs achieve high-quality development remain underexplored. By integrating industrial cluster theory, innovation ecosystem theory, and competitive advantage theory, this study identifies five dimensions with six antecedent conditions—strategic planning, leading-industry firms, leading enterprises, innovation platforms, supporting services, and operational governance—and develops an analytical framework to examine how these conditions combine into different configurations to produce SIPs’ high-quality development. Fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) is used to analyze the data from 15 specialized industrial parks in Wuxi, China. The results show that three different equifinal pathways can be used to achieve SIPs’ high-quality development, demonstrating that antecedent conditions do not operate independently but interact through complementary and substitutive mechanisms. Moreover, asymmetry exists between configurations associated with high-quality and non-high-quality development. This study advances a configurational understanding of SIPs’ high-quality development and provides practical guidance for differentiated development and precise governance strategies in other regions.