Research On The Impact Of Open Innovation And Absorptive Capacity To The Innovation Performance Of China's Automotive Enterprises

In recent years,China's automotive industry has maintained a sustained and rapid growth,which plays an important role in the development of the national economy.From "Quantity" perspective,China has become a veritable big car-producing country;However,from "Quality" perspective,a large gap still exists to become a high-technology car-producing country.For years,China's own-brand cars have been at a disadvantage in the market.Particularly,the premium car market share was long occupied by foreign brands.For more than 60 years,China's automobile enterprises have practiced technology import in a large scale and a full range;Different outside-in open innovation measures have been adopted in this period.However,automakers are still unable to establish independent innovation abilities.For the reason,Chinese automakers' awareness of open innovation is still insufficient,and they fail to generate sufficient absorptive capacity,which lead to the results that alien technology and resources are not well transformed to become ones' own capacity and innovation output.At present,the academic researches about the relation of open innovation,absorptive capacity and innovation performance are not enough.Some scholars study the internal relations of open innovation and absorptive capacity from the theoretical point of view;Few scholars study how open innovation and absorptive capacity affect the innovation performance of enterprises from the empirical analysis.However,researches about open innovation of automobile enterprises are not much and few studies can be found from the integration perspective of open innovation and absorptive capacity.Based on literature research and the features of auto industry,an analytical framework is built on the relationship of open innovation,absorptive capacity and innovation performance about China's automobile enterprises,according which hypotheses are assumed.Regarding the research purposes and features of automobile enterprises,this paper selects 12 automakers as samples,which include 6 state-owned car enterprises and 6 private car enterprises;First-hand data for empirical research is collected through questionnaires.Using structural equation modeling,the analytical framework and the hypotheses are tested.The main conclusions of this paper are as follows:(1)Open innovation does not have direct effects on a company's innovation performance.Instead,it indirectly influences a company's innovation performance by affecting its realized absorptive capacity.(2)Specifically,the company's innovation philosophy influences its degree of openness,which further affects its realized absorptive capacity and finally influences the innovation performance.(3)Potential absorptive capacity doesn't have effects on innovation performance of the company.Based on the research results,countermeasures are proposed to further enhance the open innovation and absorptive capacity of China's automobile enterprises:(1)The enterprise needs to improve their awareness of the mediating effect of absorptive capacity on the influence of open innovation on innovation performance.(2)Increasing investment in research and development,and constantly improving the realized absorptive capacity.(3)The enterprise needs to improve its organizational structure and enhance its research process.