The Impacts Of Firm's Network Power On Breakthrough Innovation

Breakthrough innovation activities can not only disrupt the established technological paradigm,but may also trigger changes in the market structure,which is of strategic significance for the competitiveness of companies,regions,and countries.However,in the face of knowledge complexity and fragmentation,and market dynamics,companies often need cooperative innovations.This makes the innovation network an important carrier and trend choice for sharing innovation risks,acquiring complementary knowledge and resources,and achieving breakthrough innovation.However,different endowments of key resources(knowledge and relational)lead to different network power.Such power differences in control and influence the innovation network,further affect enterprises to carry out breakthrough innovations.Current research has focused on the influence of network power on the enterprise's innovation network revenue,but the internal mechanism and boundary conditions of network power acting on breakthrough innovations are rarely discussed in-depth,and there are certain divergences in existing conclusions.Therefore,based on existing theoretical views(resource dependence theory,powerdependence view,learning view,and integration view)and research results,this dissertation focuses on the basic issue “how network power influence breakthrough innovation”,then analyzes it through two paths,namely,network power ? external relational learning ? breakthrough innovation,network power ? internal knowledge integration ? breakthrough innovation,and explains in depth from three research questions:(1)what is the relationship between network power of firms in an innovation network and its breakthrough innovation?(2)what are the paths through which network power acts on breakthrough innovation?(3)what impacts will the firm's different network relationship management levels(forward planning and joint actions)have on the above internal mechanisms?To answer the above three research questions,this dissertation first adopts an exploratory case study method and uses practical cases to further clarify the theoretical framework.To be more specific,three representative companies in the fields of mobile communications,photovoltaics,and mobile storage were selected to carry out a multicase exploratory analysis.Through intra-case and cross-case analysis,we further clarify the connotation and types of network power in business practice and point out that the influences of knowledge power and relational power on breakthrough innovation have threshold effects,and such influences are mediated through external relational learning and internal knowledge integration.Second,combined with the results of theoretical research and exploratory case analysis,this dissertation raises research hypotheses and proposes the influence mechanism of network power(knowledge power and relational power)on its breakthrough innovation(direct effects and mediation effects)and the moderating effect of network relationship governance(planning and joint action).Then,this dissertation verifies the hypotheses one by one through 233 enterprises data collected by surveys.Based on the above research work,the following main conclusions are obtained:(1)within the innovation network,the influence of network power(knowledge power and relational power)on its breakthrough innovation presents an inverted Ushaped relationship.This study found through exploratory case analysis and 233 surveys that only moderate knowledge power and relational power can boost a firm's breakthrough innovation,otherwise,it inhibits breakthrough innovation.(2)network power affects a firm's breakthrough innovation through external relational learning and internal knowledge integration.The empirical study found that network power and external relational learning are in an inverted U-shaped relationship,but the mediating effect of external relational learning is partially supported.Network power positively relates to internal knowledge integration of enterprises,and internal knowledge integration has a partial mediating effect between the relationship of network power and breakthrough innovation.In addition,external relational learning influences breakthrough innovation through internal knowledge integration.(3)network relationship governance plays an important boundary role between network power and external relational learning,but the boundary role between network power and internal knowledge integration is not prominent.The empirical study found that forward planning and joint actions can significantly and positively moderate the relationship between network power and external relational learning.Moreover,forward planning and joint learning both cannot significantly moderate the relationship between network power and internal knowledge integration;joint actions cannot significantly moderate the relationship between knowledge power and internal knowledge integration.Based on the above explorations,the main research contributions are as follows:(1)this dissertation further clarifies the connotation of the two types of network power.In the context of open innovation,knowledge and relationships are important keys to unlock the profound meaning of innovation networks.Based on the resource dependence theory and the power-dependence perspective,firms occupying key knowledge and relational resources will form influence and control over other network actors,that is,network power.However,the connotation and division of network power have not reached a consistent conclusion.This research proposes knowledge power and relational power,which helps bridge the current literature on the deficiencies of network power types and expand the research boundary of resource dependence theory and powerdependence perspective.(2)this dissertation breaks through the linear logic of power and analyzes how the network power in the innovation network acts on the breakthrough innovation.Combining the contradictory views,this dissertation further analyzes the possible relationship between network power and breakthrough innovation in a non-linear way of thinking.This dissertation also introduces external relational learning and internal knowledge integration to effectively identify the effects of network power on breakthrough innovation,which expands the research scope of network power and innovation network.(3)this dissertation clarifies the moderation effect of network relationship governance on the relationship between network power and external relational learning,internal knowledge integration.Less attention was paid to the effect of network power under the situation of different network relationship governance.This dissertation contends that the effect of network power on external relational learning will vary depending on the level of network relationship governance,while the relationship between network power and internal knowledge integration is difficult to be affected.This logic and results contribute to the depth study on network power,relational learning,and knowledge integration,and provide new theoretical and practical guidance for enterprises to manage network relationship governance and network power.