Research On The Impact Of Corporate Social Capital On Open Innovation

Innovation is an important driving factor to promote the rapid development of the whole economy.However,under the guidance of “innovation driving development” strategy,the overall innovation enthusiasm of Chinese firms is rising.In this era when the “stock” of technology has been extremely huge,how to further create the “increment” of technology is an urgent problem for each firm and each innovator.In practice,many firms have found that opening firm boundary,cooperating with other individuals,universities or firms to jointly promote open innovative projects can effectively make up for their lack of funds and technology,as well as improve the innovation quantity and quality.The new innovation strategy based on cooperation is of great significance in maintaining innovation vitality and promoting the further growth of national economy and technology in the high-tech era.According to the theory of social capital,the firm and its managers build a unique and stable social network in the process of daily operation and trade.The explicit or implicit resources they can obtain from the network constitute a firm's social capital.The resource-based theory points out that different resources owned by a firm can maintain its production and operation.Unique tangible or intangible resources can be transformed into competitiveness,which is the main source of a firm's competitive advantage.Social capital shows the firm's ability to obtain resources from external social networks.This ability just meets the needs of open innovation and is of great significance in supplementing the firm's own resources.The existing studies have carried out some theoretical exploration and empirical research on corporate social capital and open innovation.However,the existing research on the impact of social capital on open innovation still has limitations: First,most of the research on open innovation remains in the exploration of theoretical and practical cases.Most of the researches on the impact of corporate social capital on innovation behavior are the discussion on the overall innovation behavior and output.However,few studies refine innovation into open innovation in the form of cooperation.Open innovation is a new innovation mode in the high-tech era.Exploring how to stimulate the firm's interest in cooperation with the outsiders can help firm explore ways to improve innovation.Second,the research on the influencing factors of innovation quantity and quality in the current literature is not enough.Although different types of patents can represent innovative achievements,invention patents have higher technical content and represent higher innovation quality.Improving innovation quality has greater practical significance for the development of firm and society.Third,the current exploration about the impact of corporate social capital on open innovation is not enough.Most of the existing literature is to investigate the impact of a single dimension of social capital on corporate innovation behavior,or to synthesize a series of dimensions into a unified index for exploration.These studies lack of systematic research on social capital in all dimensions of the company.In fact,firms can obtain various resources from the outsiders.Resource acquisition capabilities are vital to firms.Therefore,it is necessary to discuss the different effects of multi-dimensional social capital on open innovation strategies.Fourth,the impact of analyst regulatory pressure on the relationship between social capital and openness is not clear.Supervision from analysts plays an important role in reducing agency costs and improving business performance.However,in the existing research,the impact of analyst coverage on firm's innovation decision is not clear.It is necessary to further explore the reasons why analysts' supervision mechanism plays different roles in affecting innovation behaviors.Fifth,cooperation based open innovation and closed innovation have different characteristics.In the exploring stage of open innovation,the firm needs to carry out knowledge exchange,cooperate with the outsiders,and promote the development of open innovation by absorbing external information.It is uncertain whether the dual pressure of analyst supervision and product market competition can promote or inhibit firm open innovation strategy.According to the existing issues,this paper attempts to verify the different effects of firm's social capital on the quantity and quality of open innovation,find the reasons why analyst coverage has different influences on firm's innovation strategy.And this paper tries to explore which dimension of social capital can better help firms alleviate the pressure from analysts,and whether product market competition is conducive to the firm's open innovation.Based on social capital theory,resource-based theory and the data of Chinese listed firms,this paper makes an empirical study on the impact of corporate social capital on open innovation.This paper explores the driving factors of the firm's open innovation quantity and open innovation quality.Also,this paper divides firm's social capital into three different dimensions: technology,finance and commercial social capital.Firstly,it explores the different effects of firm's different dimensions of social capital on the quantity and quality of open innovation,and then examines the moderating effect of analyst coverage on the relationship between firm's multi-dimensional social capital and open innovation.Finally,it analyzes the contingency effect of different product market competition on the relationship among corporate social capital,analyst coverage and open innovation.Through theoretical exploration and data verification,this paper find that different dimensions of social capital have different effects on the quantity and quality of open innovation.Specifically,technological social capital positively promotes open innovation quantity,while financial social capital and commercial social capital inhibit open innovation quantity.From the perspective of open innovation quality,corporate technology,finance and commercial social capital can significantly improve open innovation quality.Analyst coverage plays different role in the relationship between multi-dimensional social capital and open innovation.When a firm's managers have more academic experiences,the company can effectively resist the performance pressure caused by analysts.Analyst coverage plays a positive moderating role in the relationship between technological social capital and open innovation quantity,as well as the relationship between technological social capital and open innovation quality.With analyst coverage,the inhibitory effect of financial social capital on open innovation quantity is alleviated,while the negative effect of commercial social capital on open innovation quantity is deteriorated.In addition,analyst coverage weakens the effect of business social capital on open innovation quality.Finally,in stronger competitive industries,analyst coverage strengthens the relationship between technological social capital and open innovation quantity,while fades impact of financial and commercial social capital on open innovation quantity.As for open innovation quality,the joint effect of market competition environment and analyst coverage helps firms make better use of external technical resources and improve open innovation quality.However,the quality of open innovation promoted by external financial and commercial social capital has not been improved.This paper makes a supplement to the existing research on firms' open innovation behavior by exploring the impact of social capital on open innovation.The study has certain theoretical significance.First,it broadens the relevant research of social capital theory.The firm can use both internal and external resources for innovative development.Second,it broadens the application scope of social capital theory.From the perspective of stakeholders,this paper discusses the various dimensions of social resources that companies may obtain from outsiders,and studies the different effects of different external resources on open innovation,which enriches the application of corporate social capital theory.Thirdly,it explores the boundary of social capital theory and resource dependence theory.It is found that only in the environment with less external pressure can financial and commercial social capital play its value effectively.At the same time,the article has some management enlightenment: First,firms should pay attention to the construction of external network in order to obtain sufficient social capital.The reason is that social capital is extremely important for companies to broaden boundaries and develop open innovation.Although the accumulation of financial and commercial social capital will inhibit firm's cooperative behavior,these resources can improve the quality of cooperative innovation.The external resources of technology are conducive to the development of high-quality open innovation.Second,the effective use of external resources to carry out cooperative innovation can help a firm resist external pressure and make better external corporate governance.In particular,the acquisition of external technology,knowledge and innovation skills can help firms maintain innovation strategy when analyst coverage and product market competition bring pressures to them.The mode of cooperative innovation alleviates the shortage of firms own technology,and external technology resources are of great significance to firms' survival and development.