Studies On Management Of Science-Technology Value Chain Innovation Of Agricultural Enterprises

The theories of the management of the science-technology value chain innovation was originated from the considerations of the history, current situation and future development of the agricultural science and technology innovation in China. The contracdictions between the continuously developed new varieties, technologies and delayed increase in food yield, advanced research achievement and lagged transforming efficiency, predominant innovators and weak enterprises, open agricultural market and protected intelligence properties of genes were the bottle necks constraining Chinese agricultural science and technology innovation and had intimidated numerous small agricultural enterprises. Starting from Chinese practical distribution patterns of agricultural science and technology innovation resources, benefiting form the developping experiences of other countries, following the rules of agricultural science and technology innovation and transformation, constructing the new agricultural science and technology innovation systems cored by enterprises in combination with other institutions in governmental and private sectors could lead to the synergic effects between various innovators, implementing the new management strategies of innovation in the agricultural enterprises and the exploration of Chinese way of self-determined innovation. These were the only choices for the modernization of Chinese agriculture and also the goals of this research.In this research, the steps of "problem discovery-hypothesis proposal- case analysis-theory integration" were followed. The above contradictions and problems were proposed after investigating the prevailing difficulties confronting Chinese agricultural enterprises in their activities of science and technology innovation. Then the hypothesis tree was constructed to put the management of the science-technology value chain (STVC) as the core for modern agricultural enterprises to survive in market competition. Case studies of a series of hypothesis about the management of STVC innovation of agricultural enterprises were made on the basis of the data from 684 agricultural enterprises and statistical information and led to the conclusions in the followed texts.The management of the STVC innovation on the basis of the multiplity of the innovator was the foundation of the conlusion of this thesis. Technological innovation was the method for the enterprises to maximise their intrests and had both positive and negative effects to the enterprises and hunman societies. Governments and enterprises made different choices between different combinations of technological inovation. The innovations selected by the enterprises and sucessfully commercialised were only a small part of innovation combinations which were beneficial to whole human society. Lots of technological innovations had still to be complished by universities, research institutions and funded by the governments.Science-technology value chain (STVC) was an assemble of the links between a series of independent innovators to increase the value of science and technology development in the process from innovation sources to technology commercialization. Such link assemble formed a complicate net consisted of eight types of nodes including the source of innovation(S), original idea(O), technological design(D), experimental prototype(E), incubation of technology(I), technology commercialization(C), product standards(P) and market exploration(M). Universities, research institutions, enterprises, public and private investors, governments, intermediary and extension organs and various other agencies played different roles in constructions of STVC.STVC innovation management was characterized by the assemble of the chains linking the various innovators from the originality to the scaled market development by respective interest and the synergic effects to decrease exchange cost, promote specialization, enhance proficiency and maximize through the close cooperation between all the nodes in the chains, which enabled the proficient transformation of research achievements into the core competivities of the enterprises. The interior factors of STVC innovation management of the enterprises were mainly originated from the demands for the strengthening their core competitiveness, the complementation of the innovation resources to realize the synergic innovation effects. The exterior driving factors included new technology revolution, market globalization and their interactions.The theory about the developmental phases of technological innovations and three circle models constituted the foundations for the STVC innovation management. It considered technologies as life organisms with the same process of pregnancy, development, growth, maturity, and senescence as life during the process from innovation sources to scaled commercialization. The development of the such technology organism also followed the rules of artifical genetics and evolution whereas the multiple factors affecting the technological innovation constituted the artificial ecological environments.On the basis of the phased development of technological innovations, it was consequently proposed that phases of R&D, incubating, and technology innovation respectively formed three innovation circles composed of the involved nodes and the logical linking chains, i.e., R&D, incubation and market innovation circles.The value chain of technological innovation from O→D→E→I→C→P→M could be obtained by linking the upper semi-circles of the three circle in the innovation modes. The lower semi-circles of the three circle mode composed the value chain of technological information from M→C→E→S→O of technology innovation. The three circle mode put an emphasis on the multiple circles between the key nodes that dynamically described the non-linear, dynamic and systematic process of technology innovation in details and provided the basis of the technology innovation management for enterprises to enhance the minor or small circulations and reduce large circulations in order to elevate the innovation proficiency.The author also investigated the varied STVC forms with single, double or multiple chains of different enterprises and found that three circle modes of multiple chains were the main modes of the technology innovation. In the three circle modes of enterprise STVC, paralleling, merging, branching, integrating, crossing were possible dynamic status between the two related enterprise STVCs. Such thhree circle modes could be further typed as core gene differentiation, distant hybridization and multiple gene pyramiding modes for core technology innovation.The enterprise STVC developed in the interaction with the environment. The environmental factors linked and interacted with enterprise STVC constituted its eco-system. In the thesis, the author investigated the ecological system, niche, multi-dimensional ultra-geometrical space of adaptations and the phenomenon of niche competition, differentiation and overlap of enterprise STVC. The intergated effects of various factors determined the status of the enterprise STVC niche.In the three circle modes of enterprise STVC, the linkages between developmental nodes could be in variuous forms such as ordered linkage units, pararell linkage units, information linkage units, mistake linkage units and active linkage units, which were classified according to their linkage functions. The linkages could also be typed into the forms of integrated, cooperative and lax linkages.The total of the 64 possible linking combinations composed the linkage array of the enterprise STVCs. The pattern of ordered linked value increase line, paralell linked value increase line, mistake linkage triangles, risk linkage triangles provided the efficient analysis tools for the management of enterprise STVC innovation.There were four main modes of linkages in enterprise STVC: single-circled linkage ( SCL) , double-circled linkage (DCL), three-circled linkage (THCL) as well as networked-circle linkage (NCL) which, in turn, can be respectively divided into three sub-modes of the linkages. These 12 types of linking modes were different in the basic linking units, composition of key innovative circle, the division of innovation tasks, innovation achievements and linkage forms between different organizations. The selection of the STVC linking modes made by the enterprises were mainly affected by the factors of their innovative strategy, strength, technological developmental levels of the industries, market prediction, cost-profit analysis, efficiency and velocity. The transformation of enterprise STVC had witted the evolution in the direction of SCL→DCL→THCL→NCL in accordance to the development of the economic and technological strength of the enterprises.Based on the data from 684 agricultural scientific and technological enterprises, the author concluded four emphasis of the STVC innovation management of agricultural enterprises: protection of intellectual property, strategy position of niche of STVC, interior networks of STVC and six major exterior linkage of STVC. The case studies showed that the multinational seed companies from the west had formed integrated and strong enterprise STVC networks and become the leading forces in the innovations of the marketing agricultural technologies. Chinese seed companies had not formed their own enterprise STVC networks and their self-determined innovation abilities were relatively weak. Frequently, Chinese agricultural scientific and technological enterprises had relatively strong R& D and incubation innovative abilities but were severely weak at the marketting innovation, but on the other hand, Chinese dragon enterprises of agriculture production could be good at marketing innovation but their innovation abilities in the respects of R & D and incubatiuon had yet to be enhanced. The mistakes in the provision and demands of technology inovation as well as the poor cooperation between multiple innovators were caused by the systematic obstacles in China and the management of the enterprise STVC innovation was consequently of great importance.The theoretical originality of this thesis could be concluded from the proposal and explaination of the conception of the enterprise STVC and the construction of the structural and mathematical models of STVC from the source of science and technology innovation to the industrialization of the achievements. The proposal of theory of the phased development, non-liner multiple three circle modes of STVC innovation as well as the analysis of the eight types of developmental nodes were also from the original thoughts of the author. The analysis of the linkage mechanism in enterprise STVC including the order of "point-unit-chain-net", the linear and triangle linkage patterns, the construction of linkage arrays, the proposal of 4 modes and 12 sub-modes for STVC linkages, the analysis of the formation mechanisms of such modes as well as the theory of the enterprise STVC ecology niche were also helpful to the management of the enterprise STVC innovation. The combination of enterprise STVC theory and the case studies have constructed the foundation of the principal of the agricultural technology innovation management and could function as the guides for the management practice of China agricultural enterprises.