Study On The Effect Of Absorptive Capacity On Innovation Performance Of Paper Mills Based On Knowledge Chain

Paper-making industry, for its highly close interrelationship with other industries, is playing a crucial role in the development of national economy. However, paper-making industry features its capital-intensity, technologyintensity, resource-intensity and energy-intensity, so that its development is limited by factors such as capital, technology, resource, energy, and environment and so on. The Twelfth Five-year Plan Development of Paper-making Industry points out that, paper-making industry of China is confronted with numerous challenges, such as energy conservation and emission reduction, weak capacity for independent innovation, strong independence on imported large-scale paper equipment and restrictions of environment and resource on the rapid expansion development model. Strengthening technological innovation and promoting technological advance is the essential way to realize the sustainable development of paper-making industry. However, comparing with developed countries, our paper-making industry need to do some improvement on product innovation, process innovation, energy saving and emission reduction process innovation. One of reasons resulting in low innovation capacity of paper mills is that the low external knowledge absorptive capacity or that the paper mill does not give enough attention to the integration and utilization of external knowledge, resulting in high innovation cost and low innovation efficiency and poor result, which affects the innovation performance of the paper mill. However, few studys the domestic scholars do are about the external knowledge absorptive capacity of paper mills, nor about the relationship between external knowledge absorptive capacity and innovation performance. Therefore, study on the effect of paper mills’knowledge absorptive capacity on the innovation performance and innovation path is of profound theoretical and practical significance to promote innovation capacity and innovation performance of the paper-making industry of our country.Combining literature review, integration knowledge transfer theory and knowledge absorptive capacity theory, the study divides knowledge absorptive capacity into five dimensions:knowledge acquisition, knowledge selection, knowledge internalization, knowledge external ization, knowledge generation, theoretically analyzing the relationship among knowledge absorptive capacity, character of paper mills and innovation performance of paper mills, and finally building the theory model combining the characteristics and law of paper mills’ innovation. Then, according to the theory model, the scales of innovation performance, knowledge absorptive capacity will be designed and related data of paper-making industries of Fujian province will be collected through questionnaire survey. Next, applying factor analysis method, the observation variable data, including the innovation performance, knowledge selection capacity, knowledge generation capacity, knowledge internalization capacity and knowledge externalization capacity of sample paper mills of Fujian Province, will be transferred into comprehensive evaluation score. On the basis of the comprehensive evaluation score, by path analysis the mechanism of paper mills’knowledge absorptive capacity on its innovation performance will be verified, which provides a theoretical basis for the external knowledge absorption and management of paper mills. Finally, based on the above theoretical analysis and empirical study result, suggestions will be provided for paper mills of Fujian Province on how to enhance innovation capacity through promoting knowledge acquisition and knowledge absorptive capacity.The conclusion of the study is as follows:firstly, paper mills’knowledge selection, knowledge generation and knowledge externalization capacity have a remarkably positive effect on the innovation performance. At the same time, knowledge externalization capacity plays a role of intermediary variable when the knowledge internalization capacity exerts influence on innovation performance. Secondly, knowledge internalization capacity has no direct effect on the paper mills’ overall innovation performance, which is indirectly effected by knowledge selection, knowledge externalization and knowledge generation capacity. Thirdly, knowledge acquisition capacity indirectly influences the overall innovation performance of paper mills through its effect on knowledge internalization capacity. Fourthly, the relationship between knowledge selection capacity and innovation performance, the relationship between knowledge generation and innovation capacity, the relationship between knowledge externalization capacity and innovation capacity and the relationship among different dimensions are independent of specific innovation forms. Fifthly, the relationship between the scale of paper mills and innovation performance is dependent of specific innovation forms. The paper mills’scale has no distinct effect on the overall process innovation performance, but has a obviously positive effect on the overall product innovation performance. And there exists perfect negative correlation between the scale and the management innovation.The innovation of the study is indicated as follows:firstly, combining the existing knowledge transfer theory, knowledge absorptive capacity theory and knowledge chain model, it divides knowledge absorptive capacity into five dimensions including knowledge acquisition, knowledge selection, knowledge internalization, knowledge externalization, knowledge generation, which complementarily enriches the study about the dimension division of knowledge absorptive capacity and deepens the understanding of knowledge absorptive capacity. Secondly, based on the newly dimension-divided knowledge absorptive capacity, literature review, and interview with experts, scale of five dimensions of knowledge absorptive capacity is designed, providing references for the measure of concept of knowledge absorptive capacity and related empirical study in future days. Thirdly, based on theoretical analysis and case study and combining the innovation law and characteristics of paper-making industry, the study constructs a theory model about the effect of knowledge absorptive capacity of paper mills that attach great importance to internal knowledge transfer on the innovation performance, enriching the theoretical study about effect of knowledge absorptive capacity on innovation performance. Fourthly, based on the theory model of effect of knowledge absorptive; capacity on the innovation performance, and by path-analyzing method, the study verifies the mechanism of knowledge absorptive capacity on the innovation performance, the effect of knowledge absorptive capacity on product innovation and the effect of knowledge absorptive capacity on management innovation, further exploring the fundamental cause for the effect of knowledge absorptive capacity on innovation performance through the path analysis, and enriching the theoretical and empirical study on the relationship between paper mills’knowledge absorptive capacity and innovation performance.