| In the era of knowledge economy, open innovation is significantly vital for enterprises to innovate. Enterprises only relying on internal resources to develop innovation activities have become increasingly difficult. Internationalization is an important open innovation strategy for our manufacturing enterprises to fastly catch up. Through entering the international market, enterprises can search necessary innovation resources and knowledge in the global scope, learn the advanced international technical knowledge and management experience which can help enterprises overcome resources and institution bottleneck, and at last promote the enterprises" innovation capability. However, existing literatures mainly explore the direct influence of internationalization on innovation based on the resource-based view and organizational learning theory, and do not uncover the intermediate process. Among the little research on the direct relatiosnhip between internationalization and innovation, it mainly explores the relatiosnhip between whether the enterprise internationalizes and innovates, ignore the heterogeneity of internationalization, and also take the enterprises as passive recipients. Except that, the research situation mainly focuses on enterprises in developed countries, with less attention left for Chinese manufacturing enterprises.In view of this, based on the dynamic capability theory, we carry out the study exploring how internationalization promotes Chinese manufacturing enterprises’ innovation at the basis of internationalization research in strategic management, international business and economics. Specifically, this study uses degree of internationalization and internationalization mode as the characteristic variable to describe internationalization heterogeneity, and respectively explores the impact of degree of internationalization on innovation performance, and the impact of export and foreign direct investment on innovation performance in depth. This research mainly focuses on the following several aspects:(1) Through reviewing of the theoretical basis of the impact of internationalization on innovation, the empirical research about the consequence of internationalization in the field of strategic management, international business and economics, and research about dynamic capability, we find research gaps in the existing research. Except that, we define the concept of degree of internationalization, internationalization mode, dynamic capability which are important for the research in the next stage.(2) Four typical cases are chosen for the explorative cases research. Through theoretical presumption, data collection, within-case analysis and comparison among cases, preliminary researeh issues are put forward about the relationship between degree of internationalization, internationalization mode, dynamic capability and innovation performance, which provides a construct for futuxe research.(3) Based on explorative cases research mentioned above and in-depth theoretical analysis, we put forward the empirical model about how degree of internationalization and internationalization mode respectively influence innovation performance. The hypothesises are tested using a sample of179Chinese manufacturing firms.This dissertation comes to the following main conclusions based on the above-mentioned analysis:(1) Internationalization is benefical for firm’s innovation. Specifically, the degree of internationalization has positive impact on firm’s innovation performance and two kinds of internationalization mode including export and outward foreign direct investment have positive impact on firm’s innovation performance. Except that, the findings show that outward foreign direct investment has greater impact on innovation performance than export.(2) The effect of internationalization on innovation performance is influenced by firm’s absorptive ability for overseas knowledge. The empirical research shows that multinational corporation’s participation and international experience positively and significantly impact the relationaship between the degree of internationalization and innovation performance, and internationalization mode and innovation performance. The findings show that internationalization just provides an opportunity for firms to get and learn overseas knowledge, but the final effect also depends on firm’s absorptive ability.(3) Internationalization can influence innovation performance directly and indirectly. The empirical research shows that the degree of internationalization has direct and positive impact on firm’s innovation performance, and also has indirect and positive effect on innovation performance derived through the mediating role of dynamic capability, including opportunity recognition capability and opportunity exploitation capability. The empirical research also shows that two kinds of internationalization mode including export and outward foreign direct investment have direct and positive effect on innovation performance, and also have indirect and positive effect on innovation performance derived through the mediating role of dynamic capability, including opportunity recognition capability and opportunity exploitation capability. Except that, the findings show that outward foreign direct investment has greater impact on innovation performance than export.By employing an integrative, multidisciplinary approach, this dissertation tries to make some innovation in the following fields:(1) This paper explores the intermediary process between internationalization and innovation performance. Based on the resource-based view and organizational learning theory, researchers have explored the direct influence of internationalization on firm’s innovation. It argues that firms obtain complementary resources and learning opportunities in the international markets which finally would enhance firms’ innovation performance. However, the resource-based view and organizational learning theory both have been rightly criticized for having two crucial flaws. On the one hand, they both do not explain the transformation process of strategic asset or resources into innovation performance. On the other hand, they both do not explain how strategic resources or learning opportunities sustainably enhance firms’ innovation performance under dynamic competitive environment. Based on the dynamic capability theory, we argue that the reason why internationalization promotes firm’s innovation performance is that internationalization enhances firm’s ability to integrate inside and outside resources to cope with dynamic environment. Specifically, internationalization can influence innovation performance through the impact on opportunity recognition ability and opportunity exploitation ability. Therefore, this study enriches the research on the mechanism about how internationalization can influence innovation performance.(2) This paper expands the theoretical boundary about how internationalization influences innovation performance. Firstly, researchers in the field of international business and economics mostly explore the relationship between whether or not firms internationalize and innovation. However, we focus on the degree of internationalization, internationalization mode which reflects the heterogeneity of internationalization. Secondly, international business and economics scholars mostly using econometric research method and treat international enterprises as a passive absorber. In our study, we find that the learning process also depends on firm’s R&D investment intensity, multinational corporation’s participation and international experience. This finding adds the theoretical boundary to the relationship between internationalization and innovation performance. Finally, mostly of the research on the relationship between internationalization and innovation performance focuses on developed countries, with less attention paid to developing countries. Our research on Chinese manufacturing firms can enrich the research context.(3) This paper contributes to the study in the research field of dynamic capability. Firstly, most of the research on dynamic capability focus on the discussion of the connotation and extension of dynamic capability, with less attention on the empirical research presently. This study enriches the research on the antecedents and consequences of dynamic capability. Secondly, most of the research treats dynamic capability as a kind of single dimension variable which in fact is not suitable. In our study, we treats dynamic capability as a kind of two-dimension variable based on the view of integrative capacity, and seperates it into opportunity recognition ability and opportunity exploitation ability. |
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