Abstract: The paper conducts case studies based on 5 groups of pharmaceutical manufacturing enterprises, exploring the mechanism of how the match between the strength of complementary relationship and enterprise innovation profit strategy affects the cooperative innovation performance. It deeply depicts the strength of complementary relationship and cooperative innovation performance, and the innovation profit strategy is proposed and defined as incentive type, hybrid type and conservative type. It is found that strong complementary relation usually matches the incentive and hybrid innovation profit strategy, while weak complementary relation matches the conservative innovation profit strategy. Different matching relationships significantly affect cooperative innovation performance, and have their own paths of action. The research deepens the analysis of “relationship-performance” of social network theory, enriches the background connotation of the “PFI” framework, and has important implications for enterprise innovation decision-making and strategy implementation in the context of openness and cooperation.

Key words: strength of complementary relationship, incentive innovation profit strategy, conservative innovation profit strategy, hybrid innovation profit strategy, cooperative innovation performance