How New Quality Productive Forces Drive SMEs’ Collaborative Innovation Performance in China?

Abstract

This study focuses on the Chengdu-Chongqing Economic Circle, a key area in China’s national regional integration strategy, to examine how new quality productive forces (NQPF) and digital transformation affect the collaborative innovation performance (CIP) of SMEs. As China’s modernization process continues to deepen, investigating how new quality productive forces empower regional innovation ecosystems in the digital economy era holds significant theoretical and practical value. This study aims to investigate the direct and mediating roles of digital transformation in the relationship between NQPF and CIP. The research objectives focus on empirically examining whether NQPF affects CIP (RO1); the influence of NQPF forces on digital transformation (RO2); the impact of digital transformation on CIP (RO3); and the mediating role of digital transformation (RO4). Based on dynamic capability and collaborative innovation theory, this study employs a purposive sampling strategy and conducts a cross-sectional questionnaire survey among 612 SMEs. PLS-SEM is used to test the hypothesized relationships. The findings reveal that NQPF significantly enhances collaborative innovation performance and has a positive impact on digital transformation; meanwhile, digital transformation directly promotes collaborative innovation performance. In addition, digital transformation mediates the relationship between NQPF and CIP. These results confirm that NQPF—characterized by technological breakthroughs, innovative allocation of production factors, deep industrial transformation and upgrading, and significant improvement in total factor productivity—constitutes a strategic foundation for innovation-driven outcomes. Digital transformation plays a key role in transforming NQPF into regional collaborative innovation performance. This study links strategic policy dimensions with firm-level innovation outcomes, enriching the literature on digital and intelligent ecosystems and regional collaborative innovation. From a managerial perspective, the findings underscore the necessity for SME leaders to integrate investment in new quality, productive forces with internal digital transformation initiatives. Policymakers should prioritize providing infrastructure and institutional support for the development of NQPF and SME digitalization, making them two key levers for promoting sustainable regional growth. A limitation is that the only use of a cross-sectional design for this study. Nevertheless, this study offers an empirical perspective for assessing the deployment effects of NQPF within regional innovation ecosystems and provides directions for future research.