Chinas high-speed train dream: CSR Group and the state-led innovation ecosystem

Mostly, innovations are corporate conduct without governmental lead. Nonetheless, if the innovations are quite critical for addressing a number of important even strategic issues nationwide, while the government is the end-user of the innovations but there is no domestic or overseas enterprise can conduct such innovations according to the governmental anticipations, how can the government drive such innovations? This chapter depicts why the (former) Ministry of Railway spurred the China South Locomotive & Rolling Stock Corporation (the CSR) to engage in developing high-speed train, how it acted as the end-user, led and cooperated with the CSR to build up the comprehensive technical requirements, how it facilitated the innovation ecosystem expediting the players’ collaborations to meet those requirements, and how the CSR consequently grew its capabilities in coordinating and integrating the key elements, cultivating the learning mechanism, and reducing the risks in the ecosystem for more effectual collaborative innovation.