Navigating High-Quality Economic Growth: An Examination of Regional Innovation Ecosystems in China Through Fuzzy-Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis

From the perspective of the innovation ecosystem, this study investigates the specific paths through which regional innovation ecosystems drive high-quality economic development in 31 mainland provinces and cities in China, using the fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA). It was discovered that: (a) Within regional innovation ecosystems, multiple concurrent causal relationships characterized by interlocking alignments exist among innovation agents, resources, and environments, leading to asymmetrical configurational outcomes between high-quality economic and non-high-quality economic development. (b) On the basis of different configurations of system elements, four paths driving high-quality regional economic development were revealed, each demonstrating a "many paths, one destination" characteristic. These include the innovation agent-aggregated regional innovation ecosystem, the diversified development integrated regional innovation ecosystem, the human resource-supported regional innovation ecosystem under market environment dominance, and the economic resource-driven regional innovation ecosystem under market environment dominance. (c) Under specific conditions, substitutive relationships between conditions of innovation agents and the innovation environment within the system were observed. The findings enrich the research perspective on high-quality economic development and offer path references and empirical evidence for regions aiming to construct effective innovation ecosystems to drive high-quality economic development.