The Research Of Knowledge Sharing And Innovation In Alliance Innovation Network: In View Of Firm Embeddedness

To deal with the risk of the fierce international market competition and complextechnological innovation, more and more high-tech enterprises begin to seriously getinnovation resources from outside. Strategic alliance that is a widespreadcollaboration network among firms offers diversified surroundings and platform forfirms to develop innovation activities and effectively gain innovation resources.Direct alliance relationship provides convenience for firms to share and exchangeinnovation resources and indirect alliance relationship also provides manyopportunities for firms to get innovation resources. However, when they have somealliance opportunities, it is an important strategic choice problem for firms that whatextent and how to embed alliance network to develop alliance activities.On the basis of literature analysis and theoretical research, using theoreticalideas and methods of economic sociology, management science and statistics, thispaper analyzes the formation process of alliance innovation network, and deeplystudies on the cooperative behavior and mechanism of knowledge sharing betweenfirms in alliance innovation network. This paper also makes a series of theoreticaland empirical research on the impact of network embedded ness and geographiclocation on firm innovation capability from the perspective of complex networks. Inthis paper, main work, innovative explorations and conclusions are as follows:Firstly, this paper takes electronic information industry (telecommunicationequipment, computers, semiconductors and household audiovisual equipment) assample to analyze the necessity of the high-tech firms’ alliance to innovate, explainsthree strategy patterns to gain innovation resources (market transactions, internalmanagement and strategic alliance), and compares the relationship between the threeinnovation patterns (independent innovation, imitate innovation and networkinnovation). This paper also interprets the alliance innovation network formation andanalyzes various properties in alliance innovation network. These contents provide foreshadowing for the study of the knowledge sharing and innovation.Secondly, this paper constructs two game models of knowledge sharingbetween firms in alliance innovation network, explores what are the influence factorsof knowledge sharing, and considers the impact of alliance cost and knowledgesynergy effects on knowledge sharing behavior between firms. The amount ofknowledge firms are willing to share is affected by some factors, such as firm’s ownamount of knowledge, elastic coefficient of knowledge into commercial value,expected the amount of sharing knowledge, the ability level of firm’s ownknowledge into commercial value and shared knowledge in alliance innovationnetwork into commercial value, etc. In the absence of synergy, no firms are willingto spill their knowledge for other firms to enjoy free of charge, that is, there is"free-riding" phenomenon. Firms don’t worry about their knowledge spillover riskwhen there is synergetic effect, and are willing to be embedded in the network inorder to obtain more heterogeneous knowledge. But, with the increasing cost ofdirect access to knowledge, firms tend to become less willing to be embedded inalliance innovation network. Therefore, they will weigh the pros and cons to developalliance activities for effective knowledge acquisition to achieve the goal of profitmaximization.Thirdly, this paper constructs alliance innovation networks of10high-technology manufacturing industries in China, and uses negative binomialregression to study the impact of network-based clustering and connectivity on theinnovation capability of firms. The firms embedded in alliance innovation networkswith higher reach will have greater innovative output, and the impact clustering onthe innovation capability of firms is not significant (linear relationship), but it hassignificant and positive moderating effect on the relationship between reach andinnovation capability of firms. On the basis of Chinese auto industry, this paperdeeply studies the impact of clustering coefficient and average path length on theinnovation capability of firms in a single industry. The shorter average path length will significantly improve innovative output, but the impact of clustering coefficienton innovation capability in an inverted-U curvilinear way, and network clusteringcoefficient also moderates the effect of average path length on firm innovative outputin an inverted-U curvilinear way.Fourthly, on the basis of alliance innovation networks of10high-technologyindustries in China, this paper analyzes regional effect of firms’ structural embeddedness and choice. The higher betweenness centrality will promote firm’s knowledgecreation, but the impact exhibits obvious lag effect. Firms located in economicdeveloped area have more knowledge creation. Firm location has significantlymoderating effect on the impact of betweenness centrality and reachability onknowledge creation. This paper also uses420listed firms embedded in allianceinnovation networks as sample to explore the impact of network embeddedness andgeographic location on firm innovation performance. The network density hassignificant positive influences on firm innovation performance, but at the moment,the geographic location is not related to firm innovation performance, but it hassignificant moderating effect on the relationship between network density andinnovation performance.