The Impact Of Enterprise Network Relationship On Technical Innovation Performance

As innovation becomes more open today,enterprises' competitive advantage comes not just from the resources and capabilities they have but also from their external relationship.The uncertainty of technical and economic environment makes the development and utilization of internal technical knowledge costly and risky.Mere internal knowledge management limits the ability to obtain new ideas and knowledge from the outside and internal knowledge accumulation is not the only source of technological innovation,so it is also crucial to constantly search for new knowledge from the outside through network relationship.Enterprises are connected to broader innovation systems through network relationship and can work with their partners to face the risks of technological and market changes.The acquisition of external knowledge through network relationship is of great value to the technological innovation of enterprises,so,as an important strategic resource,network relationship can bring competitive advantages to enterprises and are of the essence of open innovation.Innovation occurs in globally dispersed organizations that exchange technical knowledge across increasingly porous boundaries.Resources owned or controlled by the enterprise can and should break organizational boundaries,and internal and external boundaries of organizations are increasingly blurred.Secure and stable network relationship can influence technological innovation with economies of scale and rich knowledge.External technology acquisition can reduce the risk of internal technology development and deal with the technology development cost and technology complexity better,thus,it can not only obtain economies of scope and scale,but also acquire new knowledge which is difficult to develop internally and reconstruct existing knowledge base.As an organization form to cope with the increasingly open and turbulent innovation environment,network relationship has become a focus of attention of academia and entrepreneurs.However,scholars still have different views on the connotation and dimension of network relationship,the theoretical system is still immature,and the relation between network relationship and enterprise's competitive advantage needs further exploration.Therefore,based on in-depth investigation on the connotation and dimension of network relationship,to further explore the effect mechanism between network relationship and technical innovation performance can enrich technical innovation theory,additionally,has vital practical significance for firms to effectively exploitate network relationship for technical innovation to cope with dynamic technology and market environment.Based on the systematic review of relevant literature,the paper,in accordance with the theoretical paradigm of“resource—ability—performance”of resource-based view,constructs the research model of “network relationship—dynamic capability oftechnological innovation—technical innovation performance”with two moderators of organizational innovation climate and environmental dynamics.Choosing technology-intensive enterprises in China as investigation sample,the paper tests the direct impact of network relationship on technical innovation performance,the mediating effect of dynamic capability of technological innovation between network relationship and technical innovation performance,and the moderating effect of organizational innovation climate between network relationship and dynamic capabilities of technology innovation and environmental dynamics between dynamic capabilities of technology innovation and technical innovation performance.The main contents of the paper are:(1)Based on the systematic review of the existing literature on network relationship,dynamic capability of technological innovation,technical innovation performance,organizational innovation climate and environmental dynamics,the concepts and dimensions of key constructs such as enterprise network relationship,organizational innovation climate and environmental dynamics are defined.(2)The paper analyzes theoretically and tests empirically the influencing mechanism of network relationship on technical innovation performance.Firstly,a theoretical model of network relationship influencing technical innovation performance is constructed,which takes dynamic capability of technological innovation as mediator,and organizational innovation climate and environmental dynamics as moderators.Then,using statistical software of SPSS24.0 and AMOS22.0,by exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis,structural equation model and hierarchical regression analysis,the influence mechanism which network relationship affects technical innovation performance by dynamic capability of technological innovation is verified.(3)On the basis of mining existing literature and combining the field research of enterprises and the experts' views,the scales of network relationship,organizational innovation climate and environmental dynamics are developed.(4)By theoretical and empirical analysis,the conclusions are drawn and the countermeasures and suggestions are put forward to improve technical innovation performance from structuring network relationship,constructing dynamic capacity of technological innovation and building organizational innovation climate.Via theoretical and empirical analysis,the conclusions are:(1)Each dimension of network relationship has significantly positive impact on each dimension of dynamic capability of technological innovation.However,in terms of specific dimension,network relationship has a slightly different impacts on dynamic ability of technology innovation.(2)Each dimension of dynamic capability of technological innovation has a significant positive impact on technical innovation performance.However,in terms of the specific dimension,the impact of dynamic capability of technological innovation on technical innovation performance varies slightly among different dimension.(3)Network relationship selection and exploitation have significant direct positive impact on technical innovation performance,however,the direct effect of network relationship maintenance on technicalinnovation performance is not statistically significant,and the effect of network relationship maintenance on technical innovation performance is mediated by dynamic capability of technological innovation.(4)Dynamic capability of technology innovation has significant mediating effect between network relationship and technical innovation performance.Specifically,each dimension of it has different mediating effect between each dimension of network relationship and technical innovation performance,which plays a partial mediating role between network relationship selection and exploitation and technical innovation performance,while a complete mediating role between network relationship maintenance and technical innovation performance.(5)Organizational innovation climate has significant moderating effect between network relationship and dynamic capability of technological innovation.Organizational innovation climate positively moderates the relation between network relationship selection and exploitation and dynamic capability of technological innovation.The moderating effect of organizational innovation climate between network relationship maintenance and technology opportunity perception capability and organizational reform capability of adapting the environment is not statistically significant,but positively moderating the relation between network relationship maintenance and innovation resource integration capability.(6)Environmental dynamics positively moderates the relation between dynamic capability of technological innovation and technical innovation performance.Technology dynamics positively moderates the relation between each dimension of dynamic capability of technological innovation and technical innovation performance.Market dynamics has a significant moderating effect between technology opportunity perception capability,innovation resource integration capability and technical innovation performance,but the moderating effect between organizational reform capability of adapting the environment and technical innovation performance is not statistically significant.(7)Enterprise competitive advantage arises from appropriate interaction between internal conditions and external environment.Theoretical and empirical results of the paper show that the interaction between network relationship and organizational innovation climate affects dynamic capability of technological innovation,and the interaction between dynamic capability of technological innovation and environmental dynamics affects technical innovation performance.It can be inferred that competitive advantage is generated by the interaction of internal and external factors.The main innovation points of the paper are as follows:(1)A new dimension composition of network relationship are defined.On the basis of a large amount of literature on enterprises' social network and technology strategic alliance,the paper defines the connotation of network relationship systematically and from different perspectives,and emphasizes that it is the external strategic resources of an organization.Based on the views of the scholars on network relationship and technical alliances and the dimension of network relationship,the paper further proposes theselection,maintenance and exploitation dimension according to the logic construction process of network relationship.(2)The scales of network relationship,organizational innovation climate and environmental dynamics are developed.Strictly according to the experts' scale development steps,the paper combines deductive and inductive method to develop related construct scales.By analyzing the reliability and validity of the investigation data of initial preliminary questionnaire,the paper forms the formal questionnaire items.(3)Based on the resource-based view,a theoretical model of“network relationship——dynamic capability of technological innovation——technical innovation performance”is constructed.Based on analyzing the direct effect of network relationship and dynamic capability of technological innovation on technical innovation performance,the paper analyzes theoretically and tests empirically the mediating effect of dynamic ability of technology innovation between network relationship and technical innovation performance.(4)The paper studies the moderating effect of organizational innovation climate between network relationship and dynamic capability of technological innovation,as well as environmental dynamics between dynamic capability of technological innovation and technical innovation performance.Based on contingency theory,the paper takes organizational innovation climate as a moderator between network relationship and dynamic capability of technological innovation,and analyzes how the level of organizational innovation climate affects the relation between each dimension of network relationship and each dimension of dynamic capability of technological innovation.At the same time,according to the conditions under which enterprises' capability can generate competitive advantage,environmental dynamics is taken as a moderator,how technology and market dynamics affect the relation between dynamic capability of technological innovation and technical innovation performance is analyzed.To some extent,the research explains the effect mechanism among network relationship,dynamic capability of technological innovation and technical innovation performance and determines the boundary conditions of competitive advantage generated by network relationship and dynamic capability of technological innovation.Based on the theoretical research and empirical analysis,it is proposed that to improve technical innovation performance in an open and dynamic innovation environment,enterprises should attach importance to the role of network relationship and actively build external network relationship.Dynamic capability of technological innovation has mediating effect between network relationship and technical innovation performance,therefore,to improve technical innovation performance,enterprises should also actively improve dynamic capability of technological innovation.Based on the moderating effect of organizational innovation climate,enterprises should cultivate strong organizational innovation climate to further enhance the influence of network relationship on dynamic capability of technological innovation in the process of building network relationship to improve the dynamic capability of technological innovation.Based on themoderating effect of environmental dynamics between dynamic capability of technological innovation and technical innovation performance,in the turmoil of the technology and market environment,enterprises should actively construct environment information searching system and improve the perception and recognition ability of technology and market opportunities to further intensify the positive influence of dynamic capability of technology innovation on technical innovation performance.