Catch-up Mechanisms And Paths Of Latecomer Firms In Complex Products And Systems

Catch-up of complex products & systems(CoPS)is a recent topic drawing much attention from both academia and practitioners.With the rapid development of China’s manufacturing industry,it is increasingly difficult for China’s CoPS firms to obtain exogenous technology.Thus,firms have to transform from the incremental innovation based technological learning to the fundamental innovation based technological learning.Meanwhile,the geographical structure of China’s international trade of CoPS is over concentrated,the index of structural hole is behind those of developed countries.Those challenges require local firms to promote the market orientated catch-up to improve the international competitive advantages.The transforms in technology and this dissertation aims to examine the core research question of "in the new catch-up stage,how Chinese local latecomer firms in the area of CoPS build a comprehensive catch-up strategy to enhance global competitiveness".Based on the logic of "connotation-mechanism-result",this dissertation further breaks down the research question into four parts,namely,the complexity connotation of CoPS,the technology catch-up mechanism of firms,the market catch-up mechanism of firms and the catch-up path of firms.Based on the theories of latecomer catch-up,organizational learning,knowledge base and organizational ambidexterity,this dissertation uses the methodologies of case study,grounded theory,large sample regression analysis and fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis.First,with regards to the connotation of the CoPS,this dissertation takes CRRC Zhuzhou Institute as a selected case and conducts the longitudinal analysis.This study finds that the interaction of the two dimensions,the source and scope of knowledge complexity,creates four categories of complexity,namely,technological breadth,technological depth,market breadth and market depth.Second,for the mechanism of technological catch-up in the firms of CoPS,this dissertation adopts a grounded theory approach to investigate the high-speed train industry of China.The results show that the technology learning of CoPS firms can be summarized into three dimensions: learning direction,learning paradigm and learning object,which influence the continuity,speed,and scope of catch-up,respectively.Third,for the mechanism of market catch-up in the firms of CoPS,this dissertation takes the listed companies in the high-end equipment manufacturing industry as sample and conducts a large-sample regression analysis,to examine the effect of market catch-up on latecomer firms’ performance.Findings show that the market catch-up benefits the latecomer CoPS firms’ performance,organization ambidexterity moderates the correlation between market catch-up and latecomer firms’ performance,and TMT faultline and organizational ambidexterity jointly moderate the relationship between market catch-up and performance.Fourth,for the catch-up paths of CoPS firms,this dissertation used the data of EU industrial R&D investment scoreboard,follows the catch-up context and the perspective if strategic fit and conducts a fs QCA analysis.The findings show that the fit between the external environmental factors,such as industrial technology opportunities and market structure,and the internal strategies,such as technological learning,business focus and resource utilization,leads to two paths: “environment pull + strategic response” and“strategy push”.Finally,this dissertation summarizes the theoretical contributions by integrating the above-mentioned four studies.This dissertation deepens the understanding of the connotation of CoPS,refines the learning mechanisms in the technological catch-up of CoPS,and unboxes the complexity between the mechanisms of technological learning and technological catch-up,enriches the theoretical insights of market catch-up of latecomer firms in CoPS,extends the research of catch-up at the microlevel,and expands and deepens the multiple theoretical perspectives to explain the catch-up of Chinese CoPS firms.