Multi-Agent Evolutionary Game Analysis of a Core-Firm-Led Innovation Ecosystem for Complex Aviation Products

Complex aviation products are characterized by high technological complexity, strong system integration requirements, long development cycles, and substantial innovation uncertainty. Achieving sustained collaboration among heterogeneous actors is therefore critical for ecosystem-level innovation performance. This study examines a core-firm-led innovation ecosystem involving a core firm, collaborative firms, and a government. Based on their differentiated roles and coupled interests, we establish the payoff structure and static best-response conditions and develop a three-agent evolutionary game model. Replicator dynamics, Jacobian-based stability analysis, evolutionary-threshold analysis, and numerical sensitivity analysis are employed to examine the transition between low- and high-collaboration states. The results show that: (1) stable high-level collaboration requires the incentive condition of the core firm, the participation condition of collaborative firms, and the public-benefit condition of government support to be satisfied simultaneously; (2) the system can exhibit multistability and path dependence, such that both low- and high-collaboration states may be locally stable under different initial readiness conditions; (3) under the baseline theoretical setting, collaborative firms constitute the most sensitive strategic dimension of the high-collaboration equilibrium; (4) government support is effective only within a bounded range in which participation incentives are strengthened without undermining policy sustainability through excessive fiscal and governance costs. These findings clarify the multi-agent evolutionary mechanisms underlying collaboration transitions in complex aviation product innovation ecosystems and provide theoretical implications for ecosystem orchestration, benefit coordination, and institutional governance.