Abstract: In a competitive market environment, high-tech enterprises may adopt different strategies, such as technological innovation and business model innovation, and enterprises with different market scales exhibit significant differences in innovation investment and product pricing. This study distinguishes between two scenarios in which innovation effort is exogenously given or endogenously determined, and constructs a Bertrand competition model to investigate the pricing and innovation strategy choices of high-tech enterprises with different market scales. The results show that: (1) when innovation effort is exogenously given, technological innovation increases product prices, whereas business model innovation leads to lower prices; competitors’ innovation strategies exert a suppressing effect on firms’ pricing decisions, and product substitutability has a significant impact on price adjustments; (2) when innovation effort is endogenously determined, the adoption of any innovation strategy by competitors reduces firms’ innovation effort, with a stronger inhibitory effect when competitors engage in technological innovation; large high-tech enterprises, benefiting from their market scale advantages, can partially mitigate the impact of competitors’ technological innovation, resulting in relatively smaller declines in innovation effort and product prices; (3) as relevant parameters change, the game yields multiple Nash equilibrium outcomes in innovation strategy choices. Large high-tech enterprises occupy a dominant position in innovation competition and enjoy strategic advantages over small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), whereas SMEs exhibit stronger strategic dependence and are more susceptible to the strategies of large enterprises. The findings provide a theoretical basis for pricing decisions, innovation effort determination, and innovation strategy selection of different types of high-tech enterprises under competitive conditions.

Key words: Innovation strategy, Technological innovation, Business model innovation, Product pricing, High-tech enterprises