Research On The Relationship Among Relational Embeddedness, Inter-organizational Learning Capability And Technological Innovation Performance

With the increasing technology complexity and degree of uncertainty of technological innovation, companies come to realize that it has been difficult to adapt to the changing times only relying on their own resources for independent technological innovation. Therefore, SMEs desiderate to establish a win-win model of cooperative innovation with other organizations. It has become a hot topic in academia to explore how relational embeddedness influences technological innovation performance of SMEs. Companies must make rapid accumulation and learning of knowledge in order to achieve technological innovation during the knowledge economy era in which knowledge is in the leading position. Many SMEs cooperate with external enterprises with the main motivation to conduct inter-organizational learning and acquire different innovative resources by embedding in the different relationships with external networks.On the basis of network embeddedness theory, organizational learning theory, technological innovation theory and contingency theory, this study addresses how relational embeddedness influences technological innovation performance of SMEs as the core issue, constructs the concept model about the relationship among relational embeddedness, inter-organizational learning capability, technological innovation performance, environmental dynamism and internal social capital through theory analysis, explores the intermediary role of inter-organizational learning capability acting on the relationship between relational embeddedness and technological innovation performance and the moderating effect of environmental dynamism and internal social capital acting on relational embeddedness and inter-organizational learning capability. The concept model and research hypotheses are validated on the sample data collecting from 267 companies by factor analysis and multiple regression analysis. The main work, research conclusions and innovation points of this research are as follows:(1) SMEs have to confront with the impact of different partners, including customers, suppliers, competitors, universities, research institutes, government departments and financial institutions, in the process of technological innovation. According to the different embeddedness subjects, relational embeddedness is divided into bussiness relational embeddedness, technology relational embeddedness, political relational embeddedness in this research. The concept model featuring the relationship among the different types of relational embeddedness, the inter-organizational learning capability and the technological innovation performance is constructed.(2) This study focuses on the relationship between inter-organizational learning capability and technological innovation performance and investigates the intermediary role of inter-organizational learning capability acting on the relationship between different types of relational embeddedness and technological innovation performance. The results show that inter-organizational learning capability has a significant positive effect on technological innovation performance of SMEs. Meanwhile, inter-organizational learning capability plays an incomplete intermediate role between bussiness relational embeddedness/political relational embeddedness and technological innovation performance and plays a complete intermediate role between technology relational embeddedness and technological innovation performance. This research further points out that technology relational embeddedness has the most significant positive direct effect on technological innovation performance and technology relational embeddedness has the maximum positive effect on inter-organizational learning capability.(3) The research introduces an important external environment variable called environmental dynamism which is divided into technological dynamism and market dynamism, seeks the different effects that the different types of relational embeddedness act on the inter-organizational learning capability under different external environments. The results show that the higher the technological dynamism, the more positive effects the different types of relational embeddedness acting on the inter-organizational learning capability. The higher the market dynamism, the more positive effects the bussiness relational embeddedness and policital relational embeddedness acting on the inter-organizational learning capability. Although the market dynamism has less influence on the relationship between technological embeddedness and inter-organizational learning capability, the most effect that the technological embeddedness acts on the inter-organizational learning capability can provide the theoretical and practical support for the technological innovation process of SMEs.(4) The research introduces the internal social capital as the company’s internal environment variable and validates the moderating effect of internal social capital between the different types of relational embeddedness and the inter-organizational learning capability. The results show that the richer the company’s internal social capital, the more positive effects the different types of relational embeddedness on the inter-organizational learning capability.