A Study On The Relationship Of Enterprise Network Centrality, Knowledge Outflow And Technical Innovation

Facing increasingly fierce competition and a more uncertain environment, technical innovation, by providing sustainable competitive advantage, become the important method of enterprise meeting dynamic competition and environment of intense. With the development of organizational network and the increasing complexity of innovation process, innovation is no longer a single individual or enterprise, but more embedded in the network to develop. Innovation can be regarded as the interaction between enterprise internal resources and enterprise external innovation resources. The same industry or related industry based on specialization and cooperation, have an increasingly apparent and important effect on innovation through innovation cooperation network. Network structure as the structure of inter-firm relations, is an important strategic resources that enable enterprise to obtain critical and valuable network information, resources or knowledge. Based on the knowledge theory, scholars have made many researches on the relationship of network structure and technical innovation, but mostly from the perspective of enterprise as the receiver of knowledge. Actually, the knowledge exchange and interaction between enterprise network and enterprise is bidirectional. This may have overlooked some important factors, just from the perspective of knowledge from the network into the enterprise. On the one hand, enterprise can strengthen exchange with other network members (such as: suppliers, vendors, research institutions, financial institutions, etc.), to obtain technical innovation-related knowledge and other resources; on the other hand, enterprise can lead to co-innovation with other network members. Therefore, from the perspective of knowledge from the enterprise into the network, this study discusses the relationship between network centrality and technical innovation performance. It has a very important theoretical and practical value.Based on the enterprise network theory, enterprise knowledge-based view and technical innovation theory, this paper put network centrality, knowledge outflow and technical innovation performance into a theoretical model, and makes an empirical analysis of whole model based on the 458 questionnaires data of high-tech and private-tech enterprises in Guangdong Province. The results show that: (1) enterprise network centrality has a direct positive effect on knowledge outflow; (2) enterprise knowledge outflow has a direct positive impact on technical innovation performance; (3) enterprise network centrality has no direct positive impact on technical innovation performance, but it can improve enterprise technical innovation performance indirectly through knowledge outflow; (4) For large-scale enterprises, this paper get a consistent result with the revised model; For medium-sized enterprises, enterprise network centrality and knowledge outflow have positive impact on technical innovation performance, but network centrality as no direct positive impact on knowledge outflow; For small-scale enterprises, the three assumptions were not verified; (5) For the enterprises of R&D investment ratio of 0-6.9%, this paper get a consistent result with the revised model; For the enterprises of R&D investment ratio more than 6.9%, enterprise knowledge outflow has a positive impact on technical innovation performance, but network centrality has no direct positive impact on knowledge outflow and technical innovation performance.The results of this paper have significant value, making great theoretical and practical contributions on enterprise network theory, knowledge management theory and technical innovation theory. It not only perfected the relevant theory, but also provided guidance for enterprises to how to use knowledge outflow mechanism to improve the technical innovation capability, and then achieve strategic objectives.However, this study discusses the influence of network centrality, knowledge outflow and technical innovation performance only for high-tech and private-tech enterprises in Guangdong Province, without considering the impact of different regions and industries and other variables. Therefore, the follow-up study may try to explore the otherness of the conclusion in different regions and industries, or the applicability in particular regions or industries, or if the conclusion is still right under the influence of other relative variables.