| With the development of China's economy,more and more Chinese enterprises narrowed the technological gap with leading enterprises,realized the technological leapfrogging and moved towards the international technological frontier,by technological learning and capability improvement.However,more local companies are still in the stage of imitation innovation and lack independent innovation capabilities.It is an important issue that Chinese enterprises have to face how to quickly improve the innovation capability and achieve technological leapfrogging.Both theoretical and practical studies have indicated that open resource utilization and boundary-spanning knowledge acquisition are important way to improve firm innovation capability.Especially in the turbulent environment,selection and use of internal and external resources of the organization help to overcome the enterprise's own resource constraints and to transform from passive digestion and absorption of knowledge to active resource acquisition and knowledge integration.Thus organizational search is the logical starting point for the enterprise to realize the capability reconfiguration innovation capability improvement.A lot of literature have studied the influence of organization search on the firm innovation capability,while the related research is not mature for the lack of attention to capability reconfiguration and its role,and of research on the evolution mechanism of innovation capability and the dynamic simulation analysis of technological catch-up process.This paper focuses on how Chinese manufacturing firms achieve the innovation capability evolution and technological leapfrogging through organization search.We try to get the key variables that affect evolution of innovation capability and explore their relation.Using structural equation and hierarchical regression method,we examine the relationship between organizational search,capability reconfiguration and firm innovation capability,path coefficient and action mechanism of these variables.We also provide several theoretical suggestions to Chinese manufacturing firms about how to improve innovation capability and realize technological leapfrogging by system dynamics simulation analysis.In this paper,we review the theory of technological innovation and firm innovation capability,describe the characteristics of technological leapfrogging,divide the process of technological leapfrogging into difference stages,define the specific meaning of firm innovation capability,summarize the firm innovation capability has four main features: systematic,path dependence,accumulation and dynamics,study the factors that affect the evolution of innovation capability and focus on the relationship between organizational search,capability reconfiguration and the evolution of firm innovation capability.Summarizing the above research and discussion,we construct the research framework of this paper.We integrate the resource-based view and the theory of firm capability.By means of exploratory single case study on a large Chinese equipment manufacturing enterprises,we analysis the common impact of resource selection mechanism and resource allocation mechanism on firm innovation capability and preliminary form the function framework that organizational search improves firm innovation capability mediated by capability reconfiguration.Several important conclusions are drawn in the case study:(1)Organizational search is an important antecedent of firm innovation capability,the local search and boundary-spanning search complement each other,and jointly affect the firm innovation capability.(2)Capability reconfiguration is the direct cause of promoting firm innovation capability.Capability reconfiguration consists of two forms: capability evolution and capability substitution,which commonly impact on the evolution of firm innovation capability.(3)Capability reconfiguration is an important mediation between organizational search and firm innovation capability,and it plays a key role in the process of firm innovation capability promotion.(4)the impact of organizational search and capability reconfiguration on firm innovation capability differ with difference stages of technological leapfrogging.Case studies forman analytical framework for organizational search impact on firm innovation capability,get important propositions of the relationship between organizational search,capability reconfiguration and firm innovation capability promotion,and lay a theoretical foundation for the following empirical research and simulation analysis.On the basis of reviewing and combing the classical theory,we integrate organizational search and capability reconfiguration theory.Using survey data from Chinese manufacturing firms,we have an empirical study on the mechanism of the impact of organizational search on firm innovation capability by means of structural equation.Research results show that:(1)Organizational search has a significant impact on capability reconfiguration.In particular,local search has a significant impact on capability evolution and capability substitution;boundary-spanning search has a significant impact on the capability evolution and capability substitution.However,local search has a more significant impact on capability evolution,and boundary-spanning search has a more significant impact on capability substitution.(2)Capability reconfiguration has a significant impact on firm innovation capability,among which,the impact of capability evolution on firm innovation capability is greater than the impact of capability substitution.(3)Both local search and boundary-spanning search have significant impacts on firm innovation capability,and the impacts are realized through the full mediation of the capability reconfiguration.So capability evolution and capability substitution are important bridges between organizational search and enterprise innovation capability.Through the empirical analysis,the mechanism model of the organization search on the promotion of enterprise innovation capability is further improved.Through literature review and corporate research,this paper divide the technological leapfrogging process into four stages: initial,following,keeping abreast,and leading.Based on the multiple regression equation,we test the moderating effect of catch-up stages on the relationship between organizational search and firm innovation capability,and the relationship between capability reconfiguration and firm innovation capability,to further explore the path and the extent of the impact of organizational search on the firm innovation capability and their evolution lawsin different catch-up stages.The study find that in the four stages of catch-up stage,the organizational search has a positive impact on enterprise innovation performance.Specifically speaking,organizational search has a greater impact on enterprise innovation performance in the first two stages(initial and following stage),the greatest impact in the keeping abreast stage,and the least influence in leading stage.The two ways of capability reconfiguration,namely the capability evolution and the capability substitution,show different laws to the innovation performance.In the process of technological leapfrogging,the positive impact of the capability evolution on firm innovation performance has been weakened,and finally(in the leading stage)has changed to a negative impact.While the capability substitution has a negative impact on enterprise innovation performance in the initial stage,play a positive impact in the following stage,which continue to enhance in the last two stages(the keeping abreast and leading stage).Through moderating effect analysis,this paper further reveals the evolution laws of the path of organizational search impact on firm innovation capability.This paper also makes a deep research on the dynamic evolution and systematic process of enterprise innovation capability and technological leapfrogging.By using the biological metaphor,we metaphor firm innovation capability as a co-evolution process which be promoted by organizational and self-organizational evolution.We regard the evolution process of innovation capability and technological leapfrogging as the evolution process of the complex system.Based on the view of adaptive evolution of Darwinism and active learning and change of Lamarckism,we construct a two-order system dynamics model and decompose firm innovation capability evolution system into three subsystems: organizational search and enterprise knowledge stock system,capability reconfiguration system and enterprise innovation capability evolution system.Simulation results show that,in the process of technological leapfrogging,the dependent variables of enhancing innovation capability are created knowledge and increased knowledge stock through organizational search,and the direct driving force for the innovation capability enhancement is promoting the evolution of organizational routines and break organizational inertia constantly through firm capability reconfiguration.A Firm can enhance and shorten the process of technological progress through policy adjusting,such as by increasing the flexibility of the strategy and enhance the willingness to enhance innovation and innovation capability,to achieve catching up and leapfrogging rapidly.Simulation research makes a more in-depth,complete and comprehensive discussion from the systemic point of view about the mechanism how organizational search impact on firm innovation capability and technological leapfrogging process,and finally put forward the policy recommendations. |
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