Technology Path Choice and Competitive Advantage of Firms in Emerging Industries: An Empirical Study Based on China's Photovoltaic Industry

Photovoltaic industry, as a strategic emerging industry supported by the national policy for a long time, is an important part of new energy industry, which is crucial for China to realize the upgrading of its energy structure and practice the goal of "carbon peak and carbon neutrality". Photovoltaic industry is characterized by long R&D investment cycle, strong scale effect, high risk of technology selection, etc. Therefore, the study of photovoltaic industry can help to explore the development law of emerging industries, and has a strong inspirational role in promoting the transformation of industrial development and the construction of independent innovation of enterprises. Silicon link is the upstream link of PV manufacturing industry, with high technical barriers, and is the most representative link of PV industry. This paper selects all the PV enterprises in the upstream silicon link of the PV industry chain as the research object according to the standards of the PV industry, by combing the industrial development history and technological change of such enterprises, and trying to explore the basic influencing factors affecting their technological routes by focusing on the technological route disputes between mono-crystalline and polycrystalline in the process of their development, creatively identifying the competitive strategies and decomposing them in the perspectives of costs, efficiency, environmental externalities and transaction costs, by constructing the basic factors affecting their technological routes. We creatively identify the competitive strategies and decompose them from the perspectives of cost, efficiency, environmental externalities, and transaction cost, and try to answer the question of what characteristics of technology routes can help enterprises gain competitive advantages from the perspective of the final development of enterprises through the construction of theoretical models and case studies, and then explore the specific influencing factors affecting the selection of different technology routes by enterprises. In this way, we can provide suggestions for improving the development quality of China's photovoltaic industry, realizing sustainable development, and contributing to the rapid development of China's strategic emerging industries.