The Impact Of Konwledge Partner On Innovation Performance

Innovation is the driving force in a global business world.In order to respond to the changing patterns of globalization, many companies such as Procter&Gamble, Siemens, Haier gain a huge commercial success by taking open innovation strategy in different ways to obtain a variety of scientific and technical knowledge and innovation resources from the outside. The competition between firms become the competition of whole business ecosystem rather than the competition of resources or abilities. Since the globalization of knowledge and information flow makes Chinese companies integrate into the competitive arena of the world of enterprises, it become increasingly difficult for firm to win through internal R&D activities.Therefore, boundaries was dissolved gradually, and collaborate with external knowledge agents became the primary way for many Chinese companies to get cutting-edge scientific and technological knowledge.Based on the integration of resource based theory, organizational learning theory and transaction cost theory, we focus on the research proposition "how knowledge partners influence firm’s innovative performance ", Specifically, this study aim to solve the following research questions from shallow to deep:(1) compared to the industry partners, what the impact of knowledge partner on firms’innovation performance?(2) what the role of slack resources between knowledge partner and innovation performance?(3) what the influence on organizational learning process during the collaboration?By using the theoretical research, exploratory case studies, hierarchical regression analysis and structural equation modeling, etc. we combinequalitative and quantitative research method on these issue and come to the following conclusions:(1) According to the difference between external partners and the degree of knowledge complementarity and synergy, we devide the collaborative partner into two major categories:knowledge partner and industry partner.Through case studies and empirical studies we show that the corporate knowledge partners have a positive impact on innovation performance. Therefore, in the practice of open innovation, companies should pay attention to knowledge partners, and strengthen the collaboration intensity between firm and knowledge partners, establishing inter-organizational R&D network and research and development entities across industry boundaries, and actively carry out a wide range of cross-border technological exchanges and cooperation.(2) The study also tested the hypothesis and moderating effect of slack resources, between the relationship of knowledge partners, industry partners and innovation performance. The results showed that unabsorbed slack resource play a positive moderation role between knowledge partner and innovation performance.While absorbed slack resources also played a significant positive regulatory role in the relationship between industrial partners and innovation performance. Overall, the study shows that the more adequate of firm’s internal resources, the more positive effect it will bring for the technological innovation.(3) Finally, this study tested the the intermediary role of organizational learning between knowledge partners, industry partners and innovation performance. The results show that the ability to search and acquire knowledge, the ability to transfer knowledge, the ability to integrate and apply knowledge play a partial intermediary role. It indicating the positive impact of the knowledge partner on innovation performance can be partially achieved through organizational learning capability. Firm’s collaboration with knowledge partner can facilitate the innovation process which including knowledge absorption, transfer and application. Furthermore, knowledge search-acquisition ability as well as knowledge integration-application ability play a partial intermediary role between the relation between industry partner and innovation performance, which means that collaboration with industry may advance firm’s knowledge seach-acquisition ability as well as knowledge integration-application ability.The conclusions deepening the mechanism of the relationship between knowledge partner and firm’s innovative performance. Overall, this study was carried out to deepen and expand in the following three aspects: (1) Further enrich the open innovation theoryOpen innovation theory suggests that innovation enterprise resources can come from within the enterprise as well as outside. Open innovation provide a new perspective for the integration of resource. We further explore the relation between various type of collboarative partner and innovation performance in the context of open innovation. On the basis of the integration of resource-based view, knowledge-based view, transaction cost theory, corporate strategy concept, innovative ecological outlook we further elaborated the motivation of companies in open innovation practice.(2) Extend the theory of Porter’s Competitive Advantage StrategyPorter competitive strategy theory overemphasize competition, Porter pointed out customers, suppliers, potential entrants and substitutes are "competitors", which will affect the degree of competition among enterprises. Porter pointed out that the strategic behavior of enterprises in the industry structure can affect their position in industry. However, Porter’s strategic theory ignores the impact of collaboration with knowledge intensive organizations outside, especially the influence of collaboration with knowledge partner on competition and industry structure. Combining qualitative and quantitative research, the empirical results of this study indicate that collaboration with external knowledge partner as well as industry partner can enhance the firm’scompetitive advantage and innovation capacity.Company which survive in the market gradually evolved into into a cooperative community organization, rather than closed, hierarchy organization. In this study, empirical research shows that collaboration with external industry partners and knowledge partner, on the one hand, accelerated the flow of cross-organizational knowledge sharing and knowledge, on the other hand, has greatly accelerated the implementation of a variety of creative process, shorten the cycle of enterprise innovation, provide new reference for the strategic choice and industry positioning.(3) Further enrich the organizational learning theoryBy collaboration with external agent,firm not only gain innovative heterogeneous resources but also organization learning capability. The collaboration with external industrial partners, knowledge partners can help enterprises build a sustainable open innovation ecosystem. This research confirmed that the organizational learning capabilities play a mediating role in firm’s open innovation practice.