| Technological innovation and standardization have become important strategicactions for firms to gain competitive advantage, for industries to make development,for nations to make economic competence. Until recently researches on standardcompetition focus on how firms’ market performance enhance their’ influence tostandard-setting. Nonetheless, studies on how firms gain firm-supporting-base andlean the industrial standardization towards the direction of their own interests are stillinadequate. Some newest research advance has pointed to an important researchquestion that is lacking deep understanding: technological collaboration among firmsmight has essential impact over firms’ influence to the formation of industrialtechnological trajectory and technical standard-setting.Based on the above understanding, this paper raises its core research question: areR&D networks influential to firm’s behavior and outcomes in technicalstandardization? What kinds of R&D network structure enhance firms’ capability toinfluence technical-standard setting? Directed by this core research question, thisstudy is constituted of two parts. The main content of the first part issub-research-question1which is focused on whether R&D networks can encouragefirms to participate in technical-standardization and how. The second part isconstituted of sub-research-question2–4which are focused on whether R&Dnetworks can enhance firms’ influence to technical-standard setting and how.Sub-research-question1: the mechanisms of how industrial R&D networksheighten firms’ participation in technical standardization. R&D networks tend toabsorb more firms to participate in technical collaboration and knowledge sharingwhich enhance firms’ strategic intent to participate in technical standardization,increase technological identification among firms, and cultivate industrial clusters offirms. All of these mechanisms contribute to heighten firms’ initiative of participatingin technical standardization. Combining a26-year time-series sample, time-seriesmodeling and social network analysis, the empirical results demonstrate that theexpanding of R&D network scale and increase of network clustering have positiveeffects over firms’ participation and outputs in technical standardizations.Sub-research-question2: The sources of firms’ influence to technical-standardsetting. It is argued that there are two main components: firms’ technical advantage and market advantage. The technical advantage includes firms’ advantage of internaltechnical resources and external technical influences among industrial peers.Advantage of technical resources refer to firms’ storage of technical knowledge andhuman resource whereas advantage of technical influences point to how much firms’technical plan are supported by other firms in the industry. Advantage of technicalresources enhance firms’“expert influence†in technical standard setting, andadvantage of technical influence endows on firms with stronger supporting-firm-baseand empower its voice in technical-standard setting.Sub-research-question3: mechanisms of how firm’s R&D networks promote theiradvantage of technical resources. Firms’ R&D networks promote firms’ capabilities tosearch, absorb, integrate, and transformation of external knowledge which in turnincrease firms’ output of technical innovation. Core businesses are mainlycharacterized with exploitative innovation, and R&D networks of adequate scale,higher tie strength and more networks closures are better support to increase firms’technical innovation output in their core-business areas which leads to stronger voiceof firms’ in technical standard-setting. Extended businesses are mainly characterizedwith exploratory innovations, and R&D networks with higher tie strength and biggerstructural holes better enhance firms’ technical innovation output in extendedbusiness areas which promote firms’ coordination capabilities among differenttechnologies and enhance their influence to compatible standards.Sub-research-question4: mechanisms of how firms’ R&D networks improve theiradvantage of technical influence. The scale, strength and non-redundancy of R&Dnetworks are measured by the combination of R&D networks and social networkanalysis. The scale, strength and non-redundancy of firms’ R&D networks help firmsto gain wide-spread and steady support from industrial peers which increase firms’influence to technical-standard setting. By applying social network analysis to studythe evolution of R&D networks in the past26years, the paper shows that theevolution of R&D networks is a process of disequilibrium. A number of firms growinto entities of clear advantage in terms of scale, strength, and non-redundancy oftechnical influence. The path-dependency effect and strategic positioning of firms inR&D networks are importance factors contributing to the disequilibrium.In the last, empirical analysis are done regarding sub-research-question2,3,and4.This study collects patent data, standard data, and firm-level characteristic data fromthe Chinese automotive industry to constructs a26-year panel sample of10635observations. Panel data models, count data models, and social network analysis are used for the empirical analysis. The main empirical results provide evidence thatR&D networks has positive impact over firms’ influence to technical-standard setting,and different network structures have varied effect. Implications to strategicmanagement and national policies are then summarized. The main contributions ofthis study lies in the following three aspects:1) it is contended that apart from marketperformance, firms’ R&D networks are also essential strategic assets in promotingfirms’ influence to technical-standard setting;2) firms’ R&D networks enhance theirinfluence in standard-setting by two mechanisms-drawing outside knowledge insideto heightening firms’ innovation resources and promoting external technical influenceamong industrial peers;3) firms’ R&D networks can contribute to frims’ relateddiversification which in turn better consolidates firms’ influence in technicalstandard-setting.
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