Research On The Impact Of Open Innovation Actor Heterogeneity And Network Relationship Strength On Enterprise Collaborative Innovation Performance

China is in a critical period of transforming from an extensive factor-driven growth model to an innovation-driven development model and fully implementing the strategic goal of high-quality economic development.Whether it can achieve independent and controllable comprehensive breakthroughs in key core technology innovation fields in China’s current and future key industrial chains and strategic emerging industrial systems is not only related to the security of China’s national industrial chain,but also to whether it can break through the US-led industry chain and technological blockade and containment from western developed countries against China.The Sino-US trade war shows that China relies heavily on the US high-tech industry and its core technologies,and key components still depend heavily on imports,which makes key core technologies controlled by others and forms a “stuck neck” technology that restricts the innovation and development of Chinese industries or enterprises.How can enterprises solve the "stuck neck" technology problem,especially in the context of the current intensified anti-globalization,when the "stuck neck" problem of technological innovation has become an issue that must be faced directly in the design of the technology governance system.Relying solely on internal innovation or relying mainly on one or two sources of innovation seems unable to meet the challenges faced by Chinese companies.In order to solve the problem of "stuck neck" in core technologies,enterprises need to adhere to the open innovation pattern of "going out and bringing in technology and knowledge",strengthen cooperation and establish a collaborative innovation mechanism between enterprises and external innovation sources.In the process of cooperation,search,explore and obtain the knowledge,technology and information resources needed by the enterprise for collaborative innovation.Therefore,how to improve collaborative innovation,especially in the context of open innovation,has become an urgent problem for enterprises to solve.In the context of open innovation,the research on enterprise collaborative innovation mainly focuses on the collaborative innovation model and its impact on enterprise innovation performance,while less attention is paid to the impact of open innovation on enterprise collaborative innovation.Open innovation,as an important paradigm to solve the problem of enterprise innovation at the current stage,emphasizes that enterprises need to break through the limitations of organizational boundaries and purposefully obtain resources such as knowledge and information required for innovation from external innovation sources.Due to the characteristics of openness,non-linearity and networking in corporate innovation activities under the open innovation model,innovation has become a collective collaboration process involving cross-organizational and cross-disciplinary multi-subject participation.The openness of open innovation activities makes it inevitable for enterprises to cooperate with external innovation subjects when implementing open innovation and influences the collaborative innovation performance of enterprises.However,the diverse open innovation sources will inevitably bring conflicts and contradictions to enterprises,which increases the communication and coordination costs between open innovation actors.To avoid the influence of these unfavorable factors,enterprises need to analyze how the heterogeneity of innovation actors affects the collaborative innovation of enterprises.The networked characteristics of open innovation activities make enterprises need to consider the network relationship with external innovation actors when implementing open innovation.This trust mechanism is beneficial to the acquisition of external knowledge and the rate of knowledge transfer.It will affect the collaborative innovation performance of enterprises.The heterogeneity of innovation actors reflects the differences in the characteristics of innovation sources in open innovation,and the strength of network relationships reflects the degree of intimacy between open innovation actors.The two are complementary,and the heterogeneity of innovation actors alone cannot make it.As an important environmental factor,the strength of network relationship will have an impact on the linkage between the heterogeneity of innovation sources and the performance of enterprise collaborative innovation in the open environment.Based on the above,this paper studies the following three aspects by adopting resource-based theory,innovation network theory and interactive determinism:(1)According to resource-based theory and the degree of open innovation to which the characteristics of innovation actors are easy to be observed,we divide the heterogeneity of innovation actors from outside to inside into type heterogeneity,resource heterogeneity and target heterogeneity,and study the three different types of heterogeneity separatly.After that,this paper analyzes the impact of the heterogeneity of innovation actors on the performance of collaborative innovation of enterprises,and tests the mediating role of strategic ambidexterity between the heterogeneity of innovation actors and the performance of collaborative innovation of enterprises at the corporate strategy level;(2)According to innovation network theory,this paper studies the network of innovation actors in open innovation,such as the linkage between network relationship strength and enterprise collaborative innovation performance,and then verifies the mediating role of knowledge acquisition and the moderating role of knowledge integration on the relationship between knowledge acquisition and enterprise collaborative innovation performance;(3)According to interactive decision theory,this paper studies the effect of interaction between heterogeneity of innovation actors and network relationship on the performance of collaborative innovation of enterprises.This paper collects relevant data from 186 manufacturing enterprises in China by means of a questionnaire survey,and uses empirical research methods to test the relevant research hypotheses.The main conclusions are as follows:(1)The heterogeneity of innovation actors has a significant positive impact on the collaborative innovation performance of enterprises,and comprehensive strategic ambidexterity and interactive strategic ambidexterity play an intermediary role in the relationship between the heterogeneity of innovation actors and the collaborative innovation performance of enterprises.The heterogeneity of innovation actors makes the quantity and quality of resources searched and acquired by enterprises diverse and different,thereby increases the amount of knowledge storage and enriches knowledge diversification and finally improves enterprise collaborative innovation performance.The implementation of strategic ambidexterity is inseparable from the knowledge required by the enterprise,and it is impossible for the enterprise to have all the innovation knowledge,which leads to some innovation knowledge from external innovation sources of the enterprise.Thus,the difference between the enterprise and external innovation actors will affect the acquisition of knowledge,which in turn impacts the implementation of the enterprise’s strategic ambidexterity.Through the implementation of the ambidextrous strategies,the enterprise can coordinate the dynamic matching of internal resources and external environment,shorten the innovation cycle and reduce R&D costs,improve product quality and process technology,and then enhance the collaborative innovation performance of enterprises.(2)The strength of network relationship has a positive effect on the performance of enterprise collaborative innovation.Knowledge acquisition plays a mediating role between the strength of network relationship and enterprise collaborative innovation performance,and knowledge integration has a positive and moderating effect on the relationship between knowledge acquisition and enterprise collaborative innovation performance.The closer the relationship between innovation entities,the shorter the trial-and-error time and process of searching for innovation resources,the more efficient the company’s acquisition and utilization of high-quality knowledge,the reduction of internal R&D costs and risks as well as the enhancement of innovation capabilities.Finally,it makes improvement in collaborative innovation performance.At the same time,knowledge acquisition can help the enterprise to identify and discover the knowledge spillover opportunities from the external innovation source in the process of cooperation with the external innovation actor,bring the spilled knowledge into the enterprise,integrate it with the existing knowledge of the enterprise to improve knowledge stock of the enterprise,and then improve the collaborative innovation performance of the enterprise.(3)The strength of network relationship has a moderating effect on the relationship between the heterogeneity of innovation actors and the collaborative innovation performance of enterprises.The heterogeneity of innovation actors and the strength of network relationship refer to the difference and intimacy of the characteristics of innovation actors respectively,and they are complementary.As an important environmental factor,the strength of network relationship will have an impact on the relationship between the heterogeneity of innovation actors and the performance of collaborative innovation of enterprises in the open system.The stronger the strenghth of network relationship among innovation actors,the greater effect of the heterogeneity of innovation actors on collaborative innovation performance of entreprise.The novelties of this paper are:(1)From the perspective of enterprise characteristics,this paper constructs a logical mechanism of "heterogeneity of innovation actors-strategic ambidexterity-enterprise collaborative innovation performance".It emphasizes what factors influence enterprise collaborative innovation performance by taking strategic ambidexterity as a black box element to reveal how the heterogeneity of innovation actors under the open innovation affects the performance of enterprise collaborative innovation,and explore the process of such an effect.This is not only an inference and verification that the heterogeneity of the characteristics of innovation actors will affect the flow of knowledge,technology and information,and then affect the performance of collaborative innovation of enterprises,but also from the perspective of enterprise strategy,it reveals the path how the heterogeneity of innovation actors affects the performance of collaborative innovation of enterprises(2)The heterogeneity of innovation actors reflects the differences in the characteristics of innovation actors in open innovation,and the strength of network relationships reflects the degree of intimacy between open innovation actors.To explain the differences in collaborative innovation performance,this paper,based on innovation network theory,continues to explore the impact of innovation actor network relationship strength on enterprise collaborative innovation performance,and further uses knowledge acquisition as an intermediary variable between network relationship strength and enterprise collaborative innovation performance.This paper analyzes the path how the strength of network relationship affects the performance of collaborative innovation of enterprises.In addition,the research on the moderating effect of knowledge integration on the relationship between knowledge acquisition and enterprise collaborative innovation performance further expands the related research on enterprise collaborative innovation performance.(3)Based on interactive determination theory,the heterogeneity of innovation actors,the strength of network relationship and the collaborative innovation of enterprises are incorporated into the unified analysis framework,and this paper verifies the moderating role of the strength of network relationship between the heterogeneity of innovation actors and the performance of collaborative innovation of enterprises.It further enriches and expands the related research on open innovation and collaborative innovation performance.In addition,this research on the interaction effect of the heterogeneity of innovation actors and the network relationship on the collaborative innovation performance of enterprises can also provide a reference for the selection of open innovation actors and network relationship management.