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| Relaxation of Market Access Regulations and Enterprise Technological Diversification |
| WANG Xiongyuan, CUI Dangdang, WANG Huixian, WANG Ziping
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| School of Accounting, Zhongnan University of Economics and Law; School of Business Administration, South China University of Technology |
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Abstract Competition gradually deepens from products to technologies and then to standards. Moreover, the relaxation of market access regulations can lead to systematic changes in the investment and output levels of innovation resources in various technological directions of enterprises. However, the existing literature largely confirms that the relaxation of market access regulations can enhance the overall innovation investment and output levels of enterprises through the mechanism of product market competition.
Relaxation of market access regulations may either reduce or increase the technological diversification of enterprises. Relaxation of market access regulations canfoster diversification when it increases the net benefits of technological diversification, and deter it when it reduces the net benefits of technological diversification. Industry leaders can choose compromise, dominance and control strategies from weak to strong based on their industry dominance. For example, the leading control group may focus on the direction of their advantageous technologies, while the industry followers can choose compliance, avoidance and resistance strategies from weak to strong based on their competitive strength. For example, the avoidance-following group may develop new technology directions. Stronger enterprises may also develop new technology directions, while weaker enterprises may abandon secondary technology directions. These choices will change the technological diversification of enterprises, and they need to adjust the innovation resource allocation in each technological direction to cope with the relaxation of market access regulations.
This paper is based on the data of A-share listed companies in China's Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets from 2010 to 2020. The negative list system for market access is taken as an exogenous shock, and the multi-period difference-in-differences method is used to test the above logic. The study finds that the negative list system for market access significantly improves the technological diversification level of enterprises in the pilot areas. Enterprises exhibit an increase in research and development projects, research and development investment, the number of technical personnel and inventors, and patents of new IPC categories. At the same time, it reduces the patent output on existing IPC numbers, improves the technological efficiency of enterprises, and significantly increases the degree of enterprises’ participation in standard formulation, especially technical standard formulation, the possibility of using external forces to promote innovation, and the degree of product market competition they face. Moreover, the effect of technological diversification improvement in enterprises with relaxed market access regulations is more pronounced among firms with higher technological uncertainty, wider coverage of inventors' knowledge, higher digitalization of enterprises, and lower financing constraints. Overall, it is conducive to improving the disruptive innovation level and total factor productivity of enterprises.
This study can, from the perspective of technological diversification, refine the research on the innovative effects of relaxing market access regulations, extending research from the overall innovation performance of enterprises to the innovation in each technological direction. Furthermore, from the perspective of competitive heterogeneity, it expands the competitive mechanism of the innovative effects resulting from relaxing market access regulations from product market competition to innovation competition and standard competition.
These findings indicate that the government should not only focus on which technological fields or directions should have their regulations relaxed, but also pay attention to and guide the changes after the relaxation of regulations in these fields or directions towards intended policy outcomes, and take corresponding measures to reduce the negative effects of relaxing market access regulations. Nevertheless, future research must continue to examine how various factors influence different elements of corporate innovation, and further clarify the internal mechanism through which firms adjust their innovation strategies in response to various institutional, competitive, and profit-driven pressures.
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Received: 11 November 2025
Published: 02 June 2026
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