Research On Technological Innovation And Inter-enterprise Network

Since the 1980's, great changes have taken place in the business environment. Changes firstly come from consumers' demand. As the social wealth increases, consumers hope that products and service enterprises supply could well satisfy their quickly changing individualized demand. Secondly, there are changes in the market competitioa The economic globalization obliges enterprises to encounter fierce competition from the global market. In order to occupy a place in the competition, enterprises have to rely on technological innovation and provide satisfactory products and service to customers at high speed.However, the characters of high investment, high risk and high complexity that exist in technological innovation make it difficult to perform technological innovation efficiently. Technological innovation has to be realized in a certain organization, however, the form of organization and the way it functions influence its efficiency and decides whether technological innovation can be performed successfully. So it is significant to do researches on which kind of organization could promote technological innovation. Among various enterprise organizational forms, inter-enterprise network is a new type of organization. It is different from traditional organization structures and has a lot unique characters. It is very necessary to analyze this new organization's function in technological innovation activities.The thesis is divided into five parts:The first part is the preface, in which the research background is introduced, then a review on relative theories and finally the train of thought about the thesis.The second part discusses the relation between technological innovation and inter-enterprise network. Firstly there is a through description and analysis of technological innovation process. Then based on the conclusion of general analysis and necessity analysis of cooperative innovation, it is argued that cooperative innovation has become the main method of performing technological innovation, and that inter-firm network is an efficient organizational form to perform cooperative innovatioaThe third part elaborates on the mechanism how inter-enterprise network promotestechnological innovation. The author gives a general analysis of inter-enterprise network's advantages in performing technological innovation, and then combines concrete network forms including outsourcing, strategic alliance, virtual enterprise and industrial cluster to give a detailed description of inter-enterprise network's innovation advantages.The fourth part is about network governance. Network governance is the premise and guarantee for inter-enterprise network to realize its function of promoting technological innovatioa This part firstly analyzes the necessity of network governance with an emphasis on two core problems about inter-enterprise network. One is to overcome the instability of inter-enterprise network. Using the analysis method of game theory, the author concludes that inter-enterprise network could reach cooperation equilibrium in theory, that is, inter-enterprise network could restrain the act of opportunism so as to guarantee the stability of inter-enterprise network. The other is the synergy effect of inter-enterprise network. It is pointed out that the synergy effect comprehensively displays inter-enterprise's function of promoting technological innovation. Then network governance is involved. A framework of network governance is established.The fifth part aims to combine theoretical conclusions with practice. The author makes an analysis of difficulties Chinese enterprises often encounter when performing technological innovation. It is pointed out that the application of inter-enterprise network could not only solve those practical difficulties but more important improve innovation abilities of enterprises. Finally, the effects of Chinese traditional culture should be considered in network governance.