The Study On Co-evolution Of Enterprise Competence And Emerging Technology

Emerging technologies inflict damage to traditional technologies and industries but also bring great opportunities. If an enterprise or country can effectively develop and manage emerging technologies in this moment of competition landscape changing, then it is more likely to catch up and establish it as a leader, which it is even more significant for developing countries like China. Knowledge of the characteristics and evolution patterns of the technologies themselves is necessary in order to effectively develop and manage emerging technologies. The evolution of emerging technology does not happen in a vacuum, but happens in the processes of the interaction of technologies and other factors. From a micro perspective, enterprise is the most basic unit of the evolution of emerging technology. Enterprise behaviors play important roles in the evolution of emerging technology evolution, which in turn, promotes the development and updating of enterprise competences. Therefore, this study investigates the co-evolution mechanism of enterprise competences and emerging technologies to gain a fundamental understanding of the evolution mechanism of emerging technologies and its interactions with enterprise competences. This study is not only important for the enrichment and development of management theories of emerging technologies, enterprise competence theory and evolutionary economics, but also has practical implications for the effective development and management of emerging technologies in Chinese enterprises.This paper synthesizes strategic management theory, enterprise competence theory, technical innovation theory, evolutionary economics, ecological systems theory, knowledge management theory and technology life cycle theory, and focuses on applying methods of expert interview, enterprise investigation, case study, statistics, structural equation model , for researching on the characteristics of enterprise competence system itself and competence system differences among different types of enterprises ,the relevance of the enterprise competence system and the competitive advantage of emerging technology enterprise , and other issues. On the basis, this paper reveals the enterprise competence how to promote evolution of the emerging technology, how to evolve under the evolution of emerging technology, and the co-evolution theory between them.Firstly, this paper introduces and comments on the connotation and characteristics of emerging technology, theories of its evolution as well as theories of enterprise competences and its evolution. On the basis of the review, this paper introduces a theoretical model about emerging technology's co-evolution between multi-elements and on multi-level by discusses the relevant elements and the hierarchy of co-evolution process. We point out that enterprises competence is the only controllable factor for enterprise cope with all the uncertainty, and the co-evolution of enterprise competence and emerging technology is illustrated.Secondly, the enterprise competence system is defined and classified from both vertical and horizontal dimensions based on the system theory perspective. To be specific, we classified enterprise competence system into cognitive, managerial and operational lays vertically and classified it into static and dynamic lays horizontally. Meanwhile, the evolution process of emerging technology is divided into periods of sprouting, developing, maturing and declining founded on the life-cycle theory of technology.Thirdly, the effect of discontinuous innovation on the evolution of emerging technologies as well as the dynamic supporting role of enterprise competence on discontinuous innovation are discussed in depth to gain better understanding of the effect of enterprise competence on the evolution of emerging technology, that is, enterprise competence can promote the evolution of emerging technologies effectively through providing impetus for discontinuous innovation. Meanwhile, an account of the empirical investigation is given to test the differences of the competence system between traditional technology enterprises and emerging technology enterprises, and dynamic competence is proved to be remarkable different. Acorrding to the construction of a model of the evolution of emerging technologies based upon the organizational learning model of dynamic competence, the formation of dynamic competence and its impulse on the evolution of emerging technologies are analyzed and tested with the case of SONY Walkman. The research result shows the formation of the dynamic enterprise competence is propitious to the evolution of the emerging technologies, which is the necessary condition to the evolution of the emerging technologies. Fourthly, this paper explains the theory of enterprise competence by means of innovative ideas of Schumpeterian. We point that the "creative destruction" process caused by innovation will require the enterprises competence to adjust continuously, so the evolution of emerging technologies will certainly require the enterprises competence to develop and update, which led to the evolution of enterprise competence system. Next, the relationships among enterprise static competence, dynamic competence and competitive advantage are examined by correlation analysis and structural equation model tests, and the enterprise competence evolution model under emerging technologies evolution is established. The research results show the following: (1) the impact of the static enterprise competence to the competitive advantage of enterprise is significant; (2) the impact of the dynamic enterprise competence to the competitive advantage of the enterprises is not significant, while the impact of the latter to the former is significant; (3) the dynamic enterprise competence need to act together with the static enterprise competence in order to influence the competitive advantage of the enterprises, while the static competence is the mid- variable of the action between the dynamic competence and the competitive advantage. So, we can conclude that the dynamic competence is the necessary but not sufficient condition to the evolution of the emerging technologies, the evolution of the emerging technologies finally promotes the static competence of the enterprises.Fifthly, this paper analyzes the phenomenon and the formation mechanism of co-evolution by ecology and enterprise ecosystem theory, and discusses the co-evolution relationship of enterprise competence and emerging technology from the perspective of level. At the same time, we establish the co-evolution model of enterprise competence and emerging technology and point out that this is a spirally dynamic recycle process.The model is verified in the case of the development of the global safety network in Ruijie Network Company. Theory and practice are integrated in the case to further deepen and improve the conclusions of this study.