| With the increasing scale of China’s investment in infrastructure in recent years, modern industrial system including mainframe computers, high-speed rail, aerospace industry, ports and shipbuilding with the typical characteristics of complex product systems (Miller&Hobday,1995), has gradually plays an increasingly important role in our society. However, it is accompanied by a variety of accidents, such as high-speed rail accidents. People began to find that high-end technology and core components which determine the core competitiveness of those complex products are still heavily dependent on foreign. And it makes people come to realize there are a series of questions to Complex product system innovation in China.Complex product system innovation as a source of national competitive advantage, plays a crucial role in the modern economic and social development (Khan,1999; Kash&Ryeroft,2000), and it attracts the interest and attention of a growing number of scholars. However, on a literature review, we found that there are some issues unresolved. First, since complex product system innovation has its salient features, and is quite different from the traditional large-scale production, a problem to be solved is to propose an analysis framework which can be used to analyze complex product system innovation. Second, as the current theory has indicated, innovation in complex product systems has the features like nonlinear collaborative innovation (intra-organization collaboration and inter-organization collaboration) and innovation mode selection (exploratory innovation and exploitation innovation). Therefore, what need to be further explored is to reveal the operational mechanism of CoPS innovation. Third, complex product system innovation is a complex process, involving multi-level collaborations between different organizations. And the processes of the CoPS Innovation in organizations with different innovative ways are not the same. Therefore, building the internal structure of the complex product systems based on the system theory and social network theory is meaningful. Lastly, complex product system innovation involves a dynamic process in terms of the phased evolution and phased collaboration. But the existing research has not clearly answered the question how that process evolves and what the internal mechanism is.By using system integrators within the complex product systems as the research object, enterprise network capacity as research perspective, this study tries to build a complex product system innovation networks by combining innovation theory, network theory with systems theory, and to reveal its inherent evolutionary path based on the self-organizing evolutionary theory. And it provides a clear analytical framework when giving further discussion of the internal mechanism of collaborative innovation of complex product systems. Specifically, this study builds a theoretical framework of complex product innovation based on an exploratory case study on CSR Nanjing Puzhen Rolling Stock Co., Ltd, and by using the self-organizing evolutionary analysis logic. And though theoretical deduction and empirical analysis, we redefined network capacity and proposed its dimensions. On this basis, we test the hypotheses by using the SEM model and174questionnaire samples.Based on the results of case study and empirical analysis, we draw the following conclusions and practical implications. First, complex product system innovation is a process of evolution, and it is formed in co-evolution of the corporate network capacity, innovation construct and innovation mode and shows stage characteristics of self-organizing behavior (namely, fluctuation stage, servitude stage and transition stage).Second, both exploratory innovation and exploitation innovation are required in the innovation process of complex product system. At the fluctuation stage, innovation capability on complex product system of the enterprise has not yet formed, and the fluctuation effect is conducive to exploitation innovation. But at the servitude stage, complex product innovation system began to form an orderly system architecture, and it helps the enterprises conduct exploratory innovation. As to the transition stage, complex product innovation system has broken through the critical point, enhanced the connections between subsystems, formed collaboration between them, and, ultimately, built their independent innovation capability. Under such circumstance, there exists the collaboration between exploratory innovation and exploitation innovation.Third, the study examines the relationship among network capacity, innovation network structure and innovation performance, and explores the internal network mechanisms in collaborative innovation of complex product system. And we found that collaboration innovation requires reasonable network structure:strong network relationship is good for exploitation innovation, but not for exploratory innovation. Therefore, when collaboration with partners, firms need to maintain both strong relationships and weak relationships, and it’s better to keep a good balance between these two types of innovation. Similarly, the increase of network centrality is good for exploitation innovation, but not for exploratory innovation; and so, if companies need to conduct exploratory innovation, too center network position may not be appropriate due to the lock-in effect.Lastly, network capabilities have a direct impact on the network structure. To maintain reasonable network structure, companies must cultivate the appropriate network capacity (relationship management capability and configuration capability). And due to the restriction of limited network resources, companies may need to focus on some specific (not all) capabilities building at each stage. Besides, the results show that the achievement of collaboration innovation of complex product system needs appropriate network structure and network capabilities, and involves the collaboration among internal network mechanisms. |
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