What Drives Internet Industrial Competitiveness in China? The Evolvement of Cultivation Factors Index

The rapid and continuous growth of the Internet industry is highly important to China's economy. Based on Porter's diamond model and using data from 2002 to 2016, we construct a cultivation factor index of China's Internet industrial competitiveness and its four composite indicators. We study the evolvement of the indexes over 15years and analyze events that were key to the growth of cultivation factors of China's Internet industrial competitiveness. The findings are as follows: (1) the cultivation factor index of Internet industrial competitiveness grows fast in waves, with alternating periods of steady growth and leap growth; (2) innovation in technology application, not technology itself, promotes the rapid increase of index; and (3) the influence of environmental opportunities and governments polices is demonstrated in evolvement of the index.