The development of applied talents in the corn industry cluster during the new era is a comprehensive effort involving various interactions of multiple factors. Precise determination of the critical influencing factors forms the essential prerequisite for promoting talent development in this specific area. Using the DEMATEL approach, this paper measures the effects of each factor and determines the core influencing factors. Based on the core factors, this paper analyzes the questionnaires relevant to the examples of applied talent cultivation in the new-era corn industry cluster using the combination of non-competitive analysis (NCA) and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA). The results show that the core influencing factors include government, industry, education and research, quality assessment, cooperation and exchanges, and capital support. The configuration analysis finds no necessity, and there are four talent cultivation pathways, which can be classified into three models, namely “Strong Habitual Type,” “Domain-Habitual Type,” and “Habitual-Balanced Type.” This research provides a valuable reference to facilitate the deep integration of applied talent cultivation and civic-political education in the corn industry cluster.
