Abstract: Taking corporate heterogeneous composition and the differences of selection in the technological upgrading behaviors of the heterogeneous enterprises in the industrial cluster district as the precondition, this paper empirically investigates the problem of technological upgrading in the industrial cluster district on the business level. It is found by this study that the impact of industrial cluster on corporate technological upgrading can be decomposed into the level effect for all enterprises and the structural effect for the heterogeneous enterprises. The pure industrial enterprises cluster can help the backward enterprises to obtain the technological spillover from the advanced enterprises so as to catch up the technological development and upgrading, while little marginal contribution can be made to the technological innovation and upgrading of the advanced enterprises. The innovation and upgrading of the advanced enterprises need the support and motivation from the regional innovative system jointly formed by such public infrastructures as producer services, high-tech service industry, financial development and institutional environment, together with the industrial clusters. The study further reveals that there exists a positive feedback effect of increasing returns between the regional innovative system and the corporate technological upgrading within the system, which consititutes the endogenous source power for the self optimization and upgrading of the industrial clusters.

Key words: corporate heterogeneous composition; regional innovation systems; industrial clusters; technological innovation and upgrading