Being on the frontline of China’s ambition to internalize hi-tech supply chains (e.g., “Made in China 2025” campaign) and on the cusp of global tech competition (e.g., U.S.-China tensions), much strategic significance is given to the electronics hardware innovation cluster in Shenzhen, better known as “the world’s hardware capital”. This study investigates the latest dynamics of Shenzhen’s electronics cluster from the perspectives of agglomeration, institutions, and the built environment. The study found that despite different interpretations of the trade-off between agglomeration economies and diseconomies by both firms and analysts, increasingly diverse types of firms and intra-firm functions spillout from Shenzhen to surrounding areas, such as Dongguan and Huizhou in the Greater Bay Area. Institutionally the dissertation found that recent major external context changes, namely the pandemic, trade war, and financial and property economy fever, have not significantly changed the innovation culture in Shenzhen. As for the built environment dimension, in the context of policy thrusts, market forces, and stakeholder interests, gentrification of affordable rental housing in urban villages only happens in a modest way, without significant displacement of labor forces serving Shenzhen’s electronics industry. Policy implications include: (i) More administrative and planning co-operation should occur between Shenzhen and surrounding municipalities, given the increasingly diverse types of firms and intra-firm functions spilling out from Shenzhen; (ii) For local government, cultivating innovation culture in a cluster is a long-term task, which requires persistent building of a favorable policy environment for many years; (iii) In terms of built environment policy-making in innovation clusters (both living and working environments), more attention should be paid to implementation mechanisms; (iv) Areas surrounding Shenzhen, potentially the future spatial focus for Shenzhen’s future innovation, should be of higher policy significance. Theoretical insights include: (i) Better understanding of mechanisms underlying the spatial growth of clusters at the sub-regional scale; (ii) The importance of the long-term in the formation of cluster institutions and culture, even in the face of short-term strong context changes; (iii) The built environment is both a driver and product of industrial clustering; (iv) Integrated study of the agglomeration, institutional, and built environment dimensions of cluster dynamics will yield new insights.

The lack of in-depth understanding of why policies succeed or fail in implementation puts future policymaking in a situation of having insufficient information to craft effective interventions. Mainstream policy implementation theory is rooted in a democratic institutional setting. Much less empirical research and theory addresses implementation in top-down authoritarian contexts, such as China. This study addresses the research question of how the Chinese governance context affects stakeholder’s behavior in combating air pollution, based on the analysis of implementation of three particular air pollution policies: (i) Natural gas / electricity conversion from coal, for winter heating, (ii) Widespread deployment of New Energy Vehicles, and (iii) The shutting down of cement production in northern China during the winter heating period to avoid overlapping pollution emissions from winter heating.

This study identifies flexibility and accountability as two important characteristics of the Chinese governance context, and traces how they affect stakeholder behavior and coalition formation, which in turn impacts policy implementation performance. The case study methodology triangulates analysis of government policy documents, secondary data, and the results of semi-structured key informant interviews.

Findings include: (i) The Chinese government has a very strong implementation capability to pass directives down and scale up, enabling rapid accomplishment of massive goals. It also has the capability to decide how the market should come into play, and to shape public opinion and ignore opposition; (ii) Interventions from the authoritarian government, given China’s vast economy and market, and the efficient top-down tiered bureaucratic system, risk distorting the market and the real policy goals during the implementation process; (iii) There tends to be an absence of bottom-up participation and feedback mechanisms; (iv) An effective self-correction mechanism, associated with flexibility and adaptability by a myriad of stakeholders often enables effective policy adjustment.

Policy implications include: (i) Policy implementation concerns need to be integrated into policy design; (ii) More thorough discussion of options is required during policy design; (iii) Better communication channels and instruments are needed to provide feedback from the bottom-up; (iv) On complex policy issues such as air pollution, pilot projects should be carried out before massive adoption of a policy.