Research On The Mechanism And Measurement Of The Impact Of Knowledge Spillovers On Regional Knowledge Innovation

With the development of knowledge economics, knowledge as a key resource isplaying a decisive role in economic development. Knowledge innovation which isthe premise and foundation of technology innovation is the power to promote theevolution of science and technology and the development of national and regionaleconomy. In recent years, in view of knowledge and knowledge innovation playingimportant roles in the economic development and the requirements of thedevelopment strategy to build an innovation-oriented country, regions of China carryout regional knowledge innovation activities based on their own development andrequirements, and build their own regional innovation system.At present, there are problems existing in regional innovation activities, such asunreasonable regional division of innovation, similar regional innovation system,malignant competition for the possession of innovation resources and so on. Solvingthese problems need to strengthen regional interaction and collaboration and allocateinnovation resources in a larger scope. But, no matter choosing regional innovationcompetition or collaboration, knowledge spillover is a vital important problem thatwe must face. Regional knowledge spillovers may let the backwards regions quicklyabsorb knowledge spillovers in low cost in order to improve innovation capabilityand innovation level, narrow regional gap and catch up with the developed regions.But knowledge spillovers may also lead to “free-rider” behavior of backward regions,dampen the enthusiasm of knowledge innovation in developed regions, and limit theability of the independent innovation. If want to reasonably use of the positiveimpact of knowledge spillover on regional knowledge innovation, it must make clearthe mechanism of the impact of knowledge spillover on regional knowledgeinnovation. Based on systematic study on literature about knowledge spillover and regionalknowledge innovation, it brings out the following three questions need to beanswered:The first question is why knowledge spillover influencing regional knowledgeinnovation activities. The second question is how knowledge spillover influencingregional knowledge innovation activities. That is to say, knowledge spilloversinfluence regional knowledge innovation activities by what means and channels inthe process of knowledge diffusion. The third question is how to break barriers ofknowledge spillover, how to improve knowledge spillover absorption ability, andhow to raise the level of regional knowledge innovation.Based on questions mentioned above, it conducts the following research:Firstly, it creates a general theoretical model of the mechanism of knowledgespillover influencing regional knowledge innovation.Secondly, it analyses the impact of knowledge spillovers on regionalknowledge innovation mode choosing. For two typical regional innovation modeswhich are regional competitive innovation and regional collaborative innovation,which one on earth should be chosen affected by knowledge spillover.Incorporating absorption ability, it conducts research on the impacts of knowledgespillover on innovation profit and input in these two innovation modes from viewpoint of theory and model. In view of the regional collaborative knowledgeinnovation becoming a kind of more efficient innovation mode, it conducts furtherresearch on the impacts of outgoing spillover and incoming spillover on innovationprofit and input in the regional collaborative innovation mode.Thirdly, using social network analysis theory and simulation method, it analysesimpacts of knowledge spillover on regional knowledge innovation network structure.Regional knowledge innovation network is an important platform for carrying outknowledge innovation activities and influencing knowledge diffusion. From theimpacts of knowledge spillover on regional knowledge innovation network structure,it is easy to find how knowledge spillover influencing regional knowledgeinnovation by influencing knowledge diffusion. After analysis on composition of regional knowledge innovation network, it analyses impacts of knowledge spilloveron network structure such as network scale, network connection strength, degreedistribution and network clustering degree theoretically. And then using thesimulation technology, it simulates impacts of knowledge spillover on the knowledgeinnovation network structure.Fourthly, it explores an empirical research on the impacts of knowledgespillover on regional knowledge innovation. After defining the input and output ofknowledge innovation, choosing30provincial knowledge innovation regions duringthe period of1998to2009as research sample, it analyses spatial distribution ofprovincial knowledge inputs and outputs, and using exploratory spatial data analysisit conducts globle and local spatial correlation analysis in order to describe thegeneral agglomeration characteristics. And then it uses spatial panel data modelestablishes knowledge production function to analyze impacts of knowledgespillover on provincial knowledge innovation activities, and then it evaluatesknowledge spillovers absorption of provincial regions of China.At last, it puts forward suggestions on improving regional innovation fromaspects of breaking barriers of knowledge spillovers, constructing learning regionalknowledge innovation network, implementing cross-regional knowledgecollaborative innovation.Through theoretical and empirical research, it draws conclusions as follows:Firstly, in different innovation mode, the impact direct and degree of knowledgespillover on the profits of different innovation bodies are different. For leaderregions, no matter in competitive innovation mode or in collaborative innovationmode, profits of innovation increase with the increase of knowledge spillovers. Onlywhen knowledge spillover coefficient is very high, collaborative innovation profitswill be higher than the competitive innovation. For follower regions, competitiveinnovation profits increase with the increase of the knowledge spillovers, butcollaborative innovation profits decrease with the increase of the knowledgespillovers. Only when knowledge spillover coefficient is very small, collaborativeinnovation profits will be higher than the competitive innovation. For collaborative innovation, no matter for leader region or follower region, innovation profits arepositive related with outgoing spillovers.Secondly, in different innovation mode the impact direction and degree ofknowledge spillover on innovation input are different. In the competitive innovationmode, the equilibrium innovation input of the leader region increases with theincrease of knowledge spillover coefficient; the equilibrium innovation input of thefollower region decreases with the increase of knowledge spillover coefficient, andthe equilibrium input of the leader region is higher than the follower region. In thecollaborative innovation mode, equilibrium innovation input of the alliance increaseswith the increase of knowledge spillover coefficient. In collaborative innovationmode, cooperation effort and cost resulting from it are positively correlated withoutgoing knowledge spillover.In the collaborative innovation process, knowledgeinput of the leader region is positively correlated with knowledge spillover of thefollower region and negatively correlated with knowledge spillover of itself;knowledge input of the follower region is positively correlated with knowledgespillover of the leader region and negatively correlated with knowledge spillover ofitself.Thirdly, knowledge spillover has significant impact on the structure of regionalknowledge innovation network. Through network evolution simulation it finds withthe increase of knowledge, the charactistic of stretched exponential distribution ismuch more significant, the degree of each network node is increasing and the networkstrength is rapidly increasing. That means knowledge spillover is conductive tostrengthen connections of of network members.Fourthly, knowledge spillover has significant impact on provincial knowledgeinnovation of China and provincial knowledge absorptions show protruding in themiddle region of China and the phenomenon of spatial aggregation is in evidenceCompared with previous studies, it is innovative in the following several aspects:Firstly, it builds a game analysis model and makes analysis on the impacts ofknowledge spillovers on profit and innovation input both in competitive innovationmode and collaborative innovation mode. And make more detailed research conclusions by numerical simulation.Secondly, using social network analysis theory and simulation method, it makesanalysis on impacts of knowledge spillovers on scale-free attribute of innovationnetwork, the network node degree and the network relation intensity.Thirdly, by exploratory spatial data analysis it explores special distributions ofprovincial knowledge innovation activities, based on spatial panel data model it teststhe impacts of knowledge spillovers on provincial knowledge innovation activitiesand it evaluates provincial knowledge spillover absorption of China.At last, it puts forwards suggestions on improving regional knowledgeinnovation based on knowledge spillover.