As the main force in strengthening and upgrading industrial chains, SRDI (Specialized, Refined, Differential, and Innovative) enterprises face developmental dilemmas such as resource constraints and information asymmetry in cross-organizational collaborative innovation. Against this backdrop, exploring how government procurement as a demand-side policy tool alleviates these challenges to promote the industrial chain collaborative innovation of SRDI enterprises holds significant theoretical and practical implications.

Based on a sample of SRDI enterprises from 2015 to 2023, this paper empirically investigates the impact of government procurement on their industrial chain collaborative innovation. The findings indicate that go-vernment procurement significantly enhances the level of collaborative innovation within the industrial chains of these enterprises. Mechanism testing reveals that government procurement fosters this collaborative innovation by enhancing enterprises’ risk-taking capacity and expanding their cooperation networks. Heterogeneity analysis shows that this effect is more pronounced in environments characterized by weaker intellectual pro-perty protection, lower government intervention, higher market concentration, and greater digital financial inclusion. Further analysis demonstrates that technology-oriented innovative procurement exerts a stronger dri-ving force. Moreover, government procurement effectively facilitates the transition of enterprises from collabo-rative participants to innovation leaders, with an amplified promotional effect after they obtain the official SRDI certification.

The contributions of this paper are threefold: First, it expands the research subjects concerning the inno-vation-stimulating effect of government procurement. By focusing on SRDI enterprises, this paper verifies the unique role of government procurement in alleviating resource constraints, breaking down trust barriers, and driving cross-organizational collaborative innovation, thereby highlighting the strategic value of demand-side policies in supporting key micro-entities. Second, it clarifies the transmission mechanisms through which go-vernment procurement drives industrial chain collaborative innovation. By integrating internal corporate innovation decision-making and external cooperative environments into a unified analytical framework, this paper provides a valuable supplement for understanding and evaluating the transmission pathways of demand-side policies. Third, it deepens the evaluation boundaries of government procurement effects. From a stock perspective, this paper confirms the long-term cumulative effect of government procurement as reputation capital and intangible assets, while revealing its differentiated value across various contexts. The findings provide theoretical and empirical support for optimizing demand-side policy configurations and promoting the deep integration of industrial chains.