基于核心-辅助技术匹配的二次创新及其演化路径研究

Secondary Innovation and Evolution Path based on the Fitness between Core and Complementary Technologies

本研究提出了基于核心技术与辅助技术匹配的二次创新及其演化模型,详细归纳了后发企业创新演化路径,以解释中国本土企业的创新成功。通过对中兴通讯案例的编码和归类,本文界定了后发企业核心技术与辅助技术的学习与相关创新。通过对纵向分析,后发企业的创新可以分为三个阶段:在狭义二次创新阶段,后发企业进行核心技术引进模仿和本地辅助技术的利用型创新,为核心技术适配本地的辅助技术;在后二次创新阶段,后发企业进行辅助技术探索和核心技术利用,跟踪国外新兴核心技术,进行基于辅助技术研发的价值创造型创新;在一次创新阶段,后发企业进行核心技术探索,并进行辅助技术利用以推动核心技术创新。本文归纳了两个理论命题:第一,发展中国家后发企业的创新是一个核心技术从模仿引进、利用创新到探索创新的演化过程,辅助技术常常先于核心技术进入探索阶段;第二,后发企业核心技术的利用创新驱动了辅助技术探索,核心技术探索创新驱动了辅助技术利用。

In the past 20 years,an increasing number of Chinese firms have followed the innovation path of having little core technology breakthroughs,followed by core technology development.The innovation path enables many local leading firms to rival against foreign companies.However,the innovation path as a technological learning process often ignores the importance of complemetnary technology.The existing literature lacks studies on how latecomers can innovate from complementary technologies and evolve into core technology exploration.Secondary innovation refers to those latercomes who import foreign core technologies and then innovate them in emerging markets.The purpose of this paper is to explain the success of innovation within Chinese enterprises by focusing on the secondary innovation based on the fitness between core and complementary technology.We conduct a longitudinal case study based on latercomer＇s learning and catch-up theories to derive an evolutionary learning path.The path improves the understanding of secondary innovation for latecomers. The first part of this article reviews the innovation of latercomers,including catch-up,absorption learning and complementary technologies.The literature review leads to a learning process framework that considers the evolution process of core and complementary technologies from longitudinal and evolutional perspectives.A longitudinal case study is pertinent because it enables us to compare characteristics of core and complementary technology learning processes.The second part of this paper uses category coding tecniques to conduct a case study of ZTE with respect to its core and complementary technological learning processes.Technological standard,system architecture and main/foundamental functional components of one type equipment are coded as core technologies.The common components and applied design are coded as complementary technologies.The third part proposes three innovation phases after conducting a longitudinal analysis.In the secondary innovation phase,latecomers source or imitate mature core technology,and exploit local complemetnary technology.In the post secondary innovation phase,latecomers exploit and track core technology,as well as explore complementary technology with value-added innovations.In the first innovation phase,latecomers explore core technology and chose generic（exploitation） or specialized（exploration） complementary technology according to the leading position of technology.The last part summarizes two theoretical proposition.First,latecomers＇ innovation in developing countries follow an evolution process from core technology imitation,exploitation to exploration.Strategy execution of acquiring complementary technology will change from exploitation to exploration faster than that of acquiring core technology.Second,latecomers＇ exploitation of core technology can drive the exploration of complemetnary technology.The exploration of core technology can drive the exploitation of complementary technology.