Purpose This systematic literature review aims to broaden the understanding of innovation capability. More specifically, we deepen comprehension of innovation capability by studying a major emerging country like the Chinese industry. Design/methodology/approach This study employs a systematic literature review (SLR) of 142 peer-reviewed scientific publications between 2004 and 2023. Findings The findings point to three central elements, which are: describing the evolution of the institutional lesson to promote the innovation capability in China, identifying the lessons used by firms to improve innovative activity and their performance and proposing a theoretical framework to understand the complexity of the process that generates the innovation capability in the Chinese industry. Originality/value This study is a pioneer in conducting a systematic review of innovation capability in a national or regional context. This study allows us to identify, characterize and analyze the capabilities that helped develop innovation capability in China to show the way to develop innovation capability in industrial firms in other emerging countries.
Mayorga et al. (Thu,) studied this question.