Research On "User-Producer Interaction" Mechanism In Technological Learning Of Machine Tool Industry

As the foundation of equipment manufacturing,machine tool industry has become a basic and strategic industry related to national economy,people's livelihood and national defense construction.In recent years,the problems of "large but not strong" and "structural imbalance of supply side of NC machine tools" have put forward new requirements for the transformation,upgrading and innovative development of machine tool industry.Dalian Gona Technology Group Co.,Ltd.(abbreviated as Gona)is a private enterprise established in the 1990s,which has become the largest annual production and sales enterprise of five-axis CNC machine tools in China for four consecutive years under the new normal of general decline in the output value of machine tool industry.In addition,all kinds of high-end five-axis CNC machine tools developed by Gona in cooperation with their typical users have broken the blockade of foreign technology and realized the technological catch-up and import substitution of foreign leading enterprises.Therefore,to understand the question of "how user-producer interaction promotes technological learning and technological capability improvement of latecomer enterprises in machine tool industry",the paper focuses on the process of technological learning and the evolution path of technological capability of Gona adopting the method of combining exploratory longitudinal case study with embedded single case study.The conclusions of this paper are as follows:1)User-producer interaction helps the latecomer enterprises of machine tool industry realize the leap from product imitation capability to creative imitation capability by providing a "product trial-and-error" platform,which accelerating their understanding of the nature of technological economy and the reverse of technical principles of machine tool industry;2)the cognition of industry and technology resulted from user-producer interaction makes the latecomer enterprises of machine tool industry adopt a more active learning strategy,which strengthens the initiative and intentionality of their technology learning and develops the organizational capability needed to manage the knowledge,leading to a result that the latecomer enterprises realize the leap from creative imitation capability to independent innovation capability;3)The leap from creative imitation to independent innovation is not a natural continuation from imitation to creative imitation,but the result of the transformation of learning strategy,and the user-producer interaction is exactly the organizational motivation of the transformation of the latecomer enterprises in the machine tool industry.This conclusion further shows that latecomer enterprises can skip specific technology learning sequences(such as technology import and product imitation)and directly adopt positive and radical technological learning strategies to accelerate forward and even create new technological trajectories when they have a su fficient understanding of the technological and economic characteristics and technical principles of the industry.Finally,the paper provides some suggestions for the transformation,upgrading and innovation development of the machine tool industry from the perspective of producer enterprises and national policies making on the basis of the research conclusions.