Research On The Impact Of The Knowledge Base Of Listed Auto Companies On Innovation Performance

In the era of knowledge economy,with the rapid development of information technology such as the Internet,information exchanges among organizations have become more frequent,and the process of global economic integration has continued to deepen.The driving force of economic growth is shifting from factor-driven to innovation-driven.If companies wish to gain a dominant position in the innovative technological revolution,more prominent core competitiveness is required.According to the relevant theories of enterprise knowledge,the composition of the enterprise entity involves many knowledge elements.Reorganizing these elements is innovation.The collection of these elements is the entity’s knowledge base,which can reflect the application mode of relevant knowledge.Of course,it will also have a significant impact on its future innovation.The knowledge base can be further divided into the width of the knowledge base and the depth of the knowledge base.The knowledge width refers to the amount of knowledge and technology that the enterprise has at the horizontal level,and the knowledge depth refers to the company’s familiarity with its own existing knowledge at the vertical level.And as the market and technological environment become more and more complex,in order to reduce other risks caused by technology,cost,and innovation uncertainty,companies have begun to conduct collaborative research and development as well as build innovation networks.The position of the enterprise in this network determines the heterogeneity and power status of the resources acquired,which is essential for the enterprise’s innovation activities.The centrality represents the central position of the enterprise in the network.The non-redundant connection between enterprises is measured by structural holes.Although the academia has begun to pay attention to the knowledge base and network location,most of the research treats these two issues separately,while,the studies combining them together are very rare,and are still under exploration.Therefore,this article attempts to put forward a new perspective on the basis of in-depth excavation of relevant domestic and foreign literature,and conduct in-depth research on the mechanism of action between them,which is of obvious practical and theoretical significance.Based on this,this paper selects the data of 126 listed domestic auto industry companies from 2003 to 2019 as a sample to study the impact of corporate knowledge base and network location on innovation performance in the collaborative R&D network.First,the concepts of network location,knowledge base,and innovation performance involved in this research are defined and analyzed,and relevant domestic and foreign literature and related theories are reviewed and discussed.On the basis of reviewing the literature,the mechanism of corporate knowledge base,network location and innovation performance is analyzed,the basic logic is explored,and 8 research hypotheses are proposed.Secondly,we retrieve patent data from the national patent database,build a collaborative research and development network,and calculate the knowledge base width,knowledge base depth,centrality,structural holes,innovation performance and other indicators.Then descriptive analysis,correlation analysis and multiple regression analysis are conducted accordingly to investigate the influence of the width and depth of the enterprise knowledge base on innovation performance.The influence of centrality and structural holes on innovation performance is also studied.Further we explore the moderating effects of centrality and structural holes to verify related hypotheses.Finally,this article considering the research conclusions and the specific conditions of the knowledge base and network location of domestic listed auto companies,puts forward relevant suggestions and improvement strategies,and discusses the limitations of this research,which provides a prospective direction for subsequent research.The six main conclusions of this study are as following:(1)There is an obvious positive correlation between the breadth of knowledge base and innovation performance.The more knowledge a company has in different technical fields,the easier it is for the company to carry out technological innovation activities.(2)There is an obvious "inverted U relationship" between the depth of knowledge base and innovation performance.(3)Centrality is significantly positively correlated with innovation performance.If a company is at the center of the network,the more heterogeneous resources it contacts,the more it will help the company to innovate.(4)Structural holes are significantly positively correlated with innovation performance.The more structural holes companies occupied,the more they help companies to obtain different types of resources,and then better achieve innovation output.(5)Centrality positively adjusts the relationship between the breadth of enterprise knowledge base and innovation performance,but negatively adjusts the relationship between the depth of enterprise knowledge base and innovation performance.(6)Structural holes positively regulate the relationship between the breadth of enterprise knowledge base and innovation performance,and positively regulate the relationship between the depth of enterprise knowledge base and innovation performance.Based on above conclusions,this article puts forward the following suggestions to enterprise’s innovation activities:(1)Pay attention to the important influence of own technological knowledge accumulation on future innovation and development.(2)Build an industrial patent alliance to enhance the leading role of enterprise cooperation.(3)Build an efficient and powerful intellectual property protection system.The research conclusions of this paper have certain reference value for auto companies to implement knowledge management,and conduct collaborative research and development to improve innovation performance.They also have obvious practical significance for enhancing the independent innovation capability of enterprises.