“厚此薄彼”还是“雨露均沾”——组织如何有效利用网络嵌入资源提高创新绩效

Favoritism or Equality: How to Make Effective Use of Network Resources to Improve Innovation Performance

网络嵌入对组织创新行为的影响一直是创新和战略领域研究的热点话题,但双元创新情境下多重网络嵌入对创新绩效的影响依然不清晰。本研究利用电子信息产业专利授权等数据,实证检验了双元创新情境下,知识网络嵌入和合作网络嵌入对创新绩效的作用机制。结果表明:合作网络的结构嵌入对创新绩效具有负向影响,但合作网络的关系嵌入有助于提高创新绩效;知识网络结构嵌入与组织创新绩效之间存在倒U型关系。在不同双元创新战略中,多重网络嵌入对创新绩效的作用效果存在差异。

The relationships of network embeddedness and organizational innovation have been a hot topic in the field of innovation and strategy. However, under the context of ambidextrous innovation, the impact of multiple network embeddedness on innovation is still unclear. Based on resource-based theory and social network theory, this paper decouples knowledge network and collaboration network from two aspects of market and technology, and analyzes the influence of organization’s collaboration network embeddedness and knowledge network embeddedness on innovation performance. Further, this article distinguishes different innovation strategies with dual innovation intensity, and explores the mechanism of organization network embeddedness on innovation performance under different innovation strategies, using patent authorization data of electronic information industry from 2000 to 2016. The structural embeddedness of collaboration networks has a negative impact on innovation performance, while the relationship embeddedness of collaboration networks helps to improve innovation performance. There is an inverted U-shaped relationship between the structural embeddedness of knowledge networks and organizational innovation performance. Under different ambidextrous innovation strategies, the effect of multiple networks embedding on innovation performance is different. Further, based on the intensity of organizational ambidextrous innovation, this paper divides innovation strategy into exploitation innovation-oriented, ambidextrous balance and exploratory innovation-oriented strategies. The results show that the structural embeddedness of collaboration network can only inhibit innovation performance under exploratory innovation-oriented strategy, and the relational embeddedness of collaboration network can promote innovation performance only under exploratory innovation-oriented strategy. The structural embeddedness knowledge network has an inverted U-shaped impact on innovation performance both under the innovation-oriented strategy and dual-balanced strategy and Permutation test shows that there is a significant difference between the inverted U-shaped relationship(s) of these two strategies. This study enriches the theoretical basis of collaboration network embeddedness and knowledge network embeddedness, and reveals the black box between network embeddedness and innovation. Based on the background of ambidextrous innovation, the paper deepened the research on network embeddedness and organizational innovation.