Research On Interorganizational Learning In Enterprise Innovation Network

Ever since 1990s, enterprise innovation has witnessed significant changes in innerand outer environment. The market and technological environment that the enterprisesface become increasingly complicated, e.g. advantages brought by pre-innovationvanish easily; trend towards knowledge integration emerges with the complexity oftechnological system increases; developing trend and breakthrough direction are hardto predict; investment in enterprise innovation increases while the risk also rises.Meanwhile, under the environment of informatization and economic globalization, thevirtuous cycle of the closed innovation model is challenged, with the increasingmobility of academic talents, enhancement of research capability and quality ofacademic institutions, the vigorous development of risk investment, the shortening ofproduct life cycles, the distribution and accelerated flow of innovation resources andknowledge elements in a wider scope, and technology transfer based on intellectualproperty protection. In such a case, hardly any enterprises can independently masteror develop all the knowledge and technologies related to development. Therefore, theenterprises should transfer from the traditional closed innovation model to an opennetwork innovation model which is not limited to the inner innovation resources butseeks for cooperation with other organizations in an active way. Moreover, throughtechnology cooperation and R & D Alliance, knowledge innovation network is formed,innovation resources are integrated and the innovation goals are achieved. Currently,innovation network has become the important form for research and developmentcooperation between enterprises, which is chosen by many wise enterprises and standsfor the development direction of the future.In innovation network, innovation of technological cooperation is a process ofseeking and seizing different knowledge resources and their integration andapplication, on the various levels and steps of which organizational learning alwayspermeates. On the one hand, the existing knowledge storage needs to be integratedand activated so as to further spread and share the knowledge in the enterprise; while on the other hand, enterprises must acquire and absorb new knowledge andtechnology outside the organization through inter-organizational learning.Therefore, with the transfer of economic mode from a substantial-resource-basedone to the knowledge-technology-oriented one, it has become increasingly importantto promote inter-organizational learning of innovation network and to cultivateenterprises' inter-organizational learning abilities. Under such circumstances, theauthor focuses on the inter-organizational learning of innovation network in thisdissertation.The paper is composed of 8 chapters, with the body covering the middle sixchapters. Following is a list of the main contents and research methodologies of eachchapter:Chapter1: this chapter first elaborates the background information of the topic,and then explains the reasons for studying innovation network from the perspective ofinter-organizational learning, by reviewing the literatures on innovation networkinside and outside China. Moreover, the definitions of innovation network andinter-organizational learning are explained and the research framework, content andmethodologies adopted are proposed in this chapter.Chapter 2: through literature review, the development of enterprise theories,organization forms, innovation models and organizational learning theories are fullystudied. It is pointed out that the development of the thee comprises a collaborativeprocess which forms the macro theoretical background of research perspective of thispaper and makes the inter-organizational learning of innovation network one of thefocuses of the research.Chapter 3: based on a review of organizational learning models, this chapteranalyses possible difficulties in constructing inter-organizational learning model.Besides, Karl Popper's theory of evolution of knowledge is applied to build aproblem-oriented, knowledge creation-centered and I-P-O link mechanism-basedbi-cycle inter-organizational learning model. Moreover, three components of themodel, namely "Knowledge Incubator", "Knowledge-sharing Network" and"Innovation Network Knowledge Base", are illustrated in detail, and I-P-O link mechanism, obstacles in implementing the model and relevant management strategiesof the model are discussed.Chapter 4: this chapter analyses the herding behavior of virtual team members'deciding process in innovation network, and evolutionary game theory is adopted todepict the virtual team members' dynamic deciding process in collaborative learning.Based on this study, the paper proposes the boundary condition of maintaining thestability of cooperation.Chapter 5: questionnaire and statistical analysis are adopted to perform theempirical study of inter-organizational learning effects in innovation network.Relations among the four variables, namely features of learning organization,organizational learning systems, inter-organizational relations and organizationallearning capacity, are studied and their direct or indirect impact oninter-organizational learning effects is measured, Accordingly, the road map of thevariables is drawn and the path coefficients are given.Chapter 6: this chapter studies the relationship between inter-organizationallearning and isomorphism. It is proposed that inter-organizational learning not onlyinfluences the flow, distribution and proliferation of knowledge resources ofinnovation network, but also affects the network members' organizational structure,culture, and evolution and legitimacy of the system. Inter-organizational learning andisomorphism form a two-way process. On the one hand inter-organizational learningwill cause isomorphism while on the other hand isomorphism will also influence theinter-organizational learning.Chapter 7: by absorbing the basic concepts and methods in capability maturitymodel (CMM) and fuzzy integrated evaluation (FIE), this chapter constructs anInnovation Management Maturity Model (IMMM) consisting of three sub-models ofdevelopment, analysis and evaluation, based on inter-organizational learning.Adopting IMMM to evaluate innovation management maturity level enablesenterprises to find out problems and corresponding solutions in innovation, so that thetechnological innovation management level will get enhanced,Chapter 8: this chapter reviews the whole paper and presents problems for further exploration.Following is a list of original points proposed in this paper:1,Karl Popper's theory of evolution of knowledge is applied to build aproblem-oriented, knowledge creation-centered and I-P-O link mechanism-basedbi-cycle inter-organizational learning model, which integrates inner-organizationallearning and inter-organizational learning of innovation network in a positive way.2. Evolutionary game theory is appropriately adopted to depict the virtual teammembers' dynamic deciding process in collaborative learning and the boundarycondition of maintaining the stability of cooperation is presented3. A novel idea is proposed that various factors that affect the inter-organizationallearning effects in innovation network, i.e. features of learning organization,organizational learning systems, inter-organizational relations and organizationallearning capacity, are related to inter-organizational learning effect in a structuralcause-effect way instead of a simple linear way. Therefore, both direct and indirectinfluences will be shed on inter-organizational learning effects. Based on this analysis,a new conceptual model is proposed and questionnaire and statistical analysis areemployed to implement the empirical study on inter-organizational learning effects ininnovation network so as to testify the model.4. The paper analyses the dialectical interaction between inter-organizationallearning and isomorphism, which breaks the fixed concept and pattern of limitinginter-organizational learning to acquisition, share and accumulation of networkknowledge between organizations.5. From the perspective of inter-organizationar learning, an original technologicalinnovation management tool, namely IMMM is developed by absorbing the basicconcepts and methods in CMM and FIE, which can be employed to diagnoseproblems in innovation management of enterprises and enhance the innovationmanagement maturity level.