Industry Associations and Small-Firm Innovation: The Strategy Tripod Perspective in Emerging Economies

Industry associations play a pivotal role in national innovation systems (NIS) in emerging economies. As institutional intermediaries, they provide firms with resources and information while also imposing administrative interventions that can reduce efficiency and undermine the interests of smaller firms. Consequently, the impact of these associations on firm innovation remains ambiguous. Drawing on the strategic tripod perspective, this study investigates how industry associations influence firm innovation contingent upon firm resource endowments and industry conditions. Using a nationally representative sample of Chinese SMEs from the China Micro and Small Enterprise Survey, we estimate logistic regression models to examine how association membership shapes firms’ patenting outcomes. Our results provide rigorous empirical evidence that industry associations are not neutral but embody an “elite-capture” bias by prioritizing firms with strong technological resources and close political ties. Moreover, although industry associations generally promote firm innovation, this positive effect reverses in highly competitive environments, whereas high-tech industry affiliation amplifies the innovation benefits of membership. These findings remain robust after six robustness checks, including propensity-score matching, the Heckman selection model, and control function methods. Our study provides a nuanced understanding of the dual role of industry associations in firm innovation from the strategic tripod perspective and highlights their conditional influence within NIS in emerging markets.