The Research On Partner Selection Of Enterprise Cooperative Innovation Based On The Project Whole Life Cycle Theory

In the knowledge economy, because of the fast development of science and technology,the only way for enterprise to maintain long-term competitive advantage is effective technicalinnovation, which can establish enterprise own core competencies. However, because thedevelopment of current technology increasingly shows the characteristics that different fieldsof knowledge combined together, almost no one innovation can be attributed to a specificfield of knowledge. Coupled with the intense industry evolution, the rapid increase in theuncertainty of the technology and other reasons, enterprise more need to adopt the flexibleinnovation mechanism named cooperative innovation, which can respond to changes in theexternal environment quickly and efficiently. However, the failure rates of cooperativeinnovation keep high level for many years. Many scholars made relevant research and holdthat selecting an ideal partner is the most important step in the constructing and operating asuccessful cooperative innovation. In other words, selecting a wrong partner can make theenterprise face greater risks and pay higher cost than the independent innovation (Yuan Lei,2001; Dang XingHua,2006). Therefore, whether can choose a right partner determine theefficiency of cooperative innovation and the realization of enterprise strategic objectives.Especially when faced with a number of potential partners, enterprises urgently need anefficient, scientific evaluation models and procedures to choose cooperative innovationpartner，so as to maximize the efficiency of cooperative innovation or minimize the cost andrisk of cooperative innovation.Currently, most of the scholars research how to choose a ideal partner in the process ofenterprise cooperative innovation, which is technical research phase. But in fact thecooperative innovation partner is not only concerned about the results of technical research,but also concerns about that the partner will become competitors after cooperative innovation,which leads to the changes in the pattern of competition. Therefore, when enterprise choosecooperative innovation partner, it need to consider the influencing factors of partner selectionbefore cooperative innovation, the influencing factors of partner selection in the process ofcooperative innovation, as well as the after-effect factors of partner selection after cooperativeinnovation. Under the guidance of Project Whole Life Cycle theory to research the partner selection can enable enterprise to consider influencing factors of partner selection throughwhole life cycle of cooperative innovation when they choose partners. So that can avoidvarious potential risks leading to the failure of cooperative innovation and improve thesuccess rate of collaborative innovation.Firstly, the literature of relevant theory are summarized and reviewed, and make ain-depth analysis of Project Whole Life Cycle theory to provide theoretical guidance for thisarticle; Secondly, on the basis of summing up decision-making process that enterprise how tochoose cooperative innovation partner in current domestic and international literatures, thispaper finds out deficiencies therein; Secondly, By drawing on the decision-making processrelated to the field of enterprise partner selection, this paper considers that there are two mostcritical steps in partner selection process of cooperation innovation: preliminary screening ofcooperation innovation partners and evaluation of cooperative schemes;In the third part, basedon PWLC theory and from the perspective of failed cooperative innovation, this paper buildsthe evaluation index system for preliminary screening potential partners, and makes anapplicability analysis and presentation of Entropy Method and Cluster Analysis Method forpreliminary screening; In the fourth part, this paper introduces the method how to buildcooperative scheme set with the left partners after preliminary screening, then based onPWLC theory establishes the evaluation index system for evaluating the efficiency ofcooperative scheme set, and make a presentation of two typical model of DEA method and itsapplication advantages for evaluating the efficiency of cooperative scheme set. Finally,through an example to verify the reasonable and operability of model and procedures forchoosing cooperative innovation partner that proposed in this paper.