Abstract: Calculating source composition of consumer products’ utility, appearance and symbolic function innovations driven by design, and verifying acting routes of design-driven function innovations with heterogeneity, have important theoretical and practical value for the transformation and upgrading of Chinese manufacturing industry. The theoretical framework of Chinese design-driven innovation had been reconstructed, and data were obtained through questionnaire survey to complete the structural equation modeling and hypothesis test. The algorithm of Bootstrap mediating effect was applied to calculate and reveal that the quality of design organizations’ relationship and the diversity of network resource both have direct or indirect effects on utility, appearance and symbolic function innovations of consumer products. Among them, joint problem solving has the largest effect on utility and appearance function innovations indirectly, and information sharing has the secondary effect on utility function innovation directly, and the diversity of network resource has the largest effect on symbolic function innovation directly. Strengthening relationship quality is more favorable for improved design innovation, and acquiring diversified network resources is relatively suitable for breakthrough design innovation.
Keywords: Design-driven function innovation, design innovation management, structural equation model, algorithm of Bootstrap mediating effect, network embeddedness, network resources
