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Abstract
This study examines the effects of institutional systems on the ability of firms to innovate and thereby contribute to the catch-up process in China. The most commonly used model of the effects of institutional systems on economic developed is summarised and employed to reveal that it does not sufficiently focus on the role of the interaction between firms and institutional systems and subsequent implications for the innovations necessary for emerging economies to catch up. A model centred on firms is constructed to enable an analysis of how institutional factors may affect important drivers of catch-up such as access to resource pools, support to help to use resources to develop competencies capable of sustaining innovation and the ability to engage in institutional entrepreneurship to help the evolution of effective institutional systems. The model highlights that innovation compatible with catch-up requires a large number of firms to be able to access appropriate resources. This requires institutional systems that permit and encourage the evolution of complex and extensive network links that can entrench many indigenous firms into foreign direct investment and trade flows and the means to access, at low cost and risk, from suitably developed national resources pools. Most importantly, institutional systems need to enable and support many indigenous and foreign firms (that have good potential to use resources effectively to create the competencies necessary to innovate) and thereby empower such firms so they can deliver innovation compatible with catch-up. Potential institutional impediments to these requirements are explored, especially problems arising from insiders and outsiders that emerge from the nature of informal institutional systems. The study concludes with some suggested research questions that may help to increase understanding of the effects of institutional systems on the ability of firms to innovate to contribute to the catch-up process.