Analysis on the Effectiveness and Mechanisms of Public Policies to Promote Innovation of High-Tech Startups in Makerspaces

In the context of digital transformation and the rapid development of artificial intelligence, corporate innovation has become increasingly important in leading industrial development and improving national competitiveness. In 2015, China launched a "mass entrepreneurship and innovation program"; in response to the policy, many makerspaces have been established, resulting in clusters of high-tech startups. High-tech startups are the pioneers in innovation development. However, there is still a lack of empirical evidence for whether these firms' innovative activities, capabilities, and performance can be effectively stimulated by public policy. Drawing from the institutional theory and resource-based view, this paper develops a model of policy perception on innovation response. Using a sample of 500 startups located in the three representative makerspaces in China, this work verifies the effectiveness of innovation and entrepreneurship incentives on startups' innovative activities, capabilities, and performance, and successfully identifies the mediating role of policy adaptation in the policy perception-innovative responses' link and the moderating role of makerspace support.