行为策略、资源结构与中小企业创新产出

Behavior tactics,resource structure and SMEs’ innovation output

即兴与拼凑策略分别意味着随机应变、另辟蹊径。中小企业的环境多变、资源总量有限,行动的计划性弱、灵活性强,适于且青睐于这两类行为策略。与此同时,由于对计划的否定与放弃等原因,即兴、拼凑的作用一直饱受诟病与质疑。这些尚存争议、甚至相互矛盾的观点造成中小企业实践的困惑,即兴与拼凑对它们的实际作用需要细致分析与验证。特别是,中小企业已成长为全球创新的重要力量。在致力于创新这类高风险、高投入、长周期活动的同时,它们又受到资源有限性等问题的掣肘,因此更加关心能否通过即兴、拼凑策略,有效突破时间与资源约束、把握创新机遇。作为中小企业两类常见行为策略,即兴、拼凑经常相伴出现,探索它们间存在的是相互抑制效应还是促进效应同样至关重要。本文旨在从中小企业创新产出的角度回答拼凑、即兴两类策略的单独作用以及在组合层面的交互效应。而且,任何策略的实施均离不开相应资源的支持,中小企业资源总量有限且外部获取能力弱,但可以根据需要自由变更自身资源结构,本文同时从沉淀资源、非沉淀资源之间关系视角探索适用于这两类策略的资源结构。相比那些不关注、甚至没有创新产出的中小企业,以科技型中小企业为样本可以更加清晰地展现和检验相关因素不同所带来的创新产出差异。鉴于行业差异和科技型中小企业的分布,本文的样本选自软件行业,并利用合肥、南京两地232家中小软件企业的问卷数据,采用普通最小二乘法进行多元线性回归分析后证实:(1)即兴、拼凑策略和中小企业创新产出之间分别呈倒U型和正相关关系;(2)即兴和拼凑策略会弱化彼此对于中小企业创新产出的作用;(3)相比非沉淀资源,维持更多沉淀资源能够增强即兴策略对中小企业创新产出的作用。这些结果从中小企业创新视角阐释了即兴和拼凑策略各自的作用,对现有针锋相对的研究观点做出回应,并且表明应当同时在组合层面关注它们的创新作用,以及中小企业可以通过资源结构调整等途径为这些策略营造良好的实施环境。具体而言:(1)中小企业可以通过实施拼凑策略提高创新产出,但注意应规范、约束、引导即兴策略的实施领域与程度,那些认为即兴一定有利于创新的观点并不成立;(2)中小企业应当谨慎同时选用即兴和拼凑这两类策略,二者间负向的交互效应值得关注,那些认为它们共生共存、互有彼此的观点值得商榷;(3)即兴的作用是多样化、情境化的,对它的选用可同时结合资源配置工作开展,比如将资源沉淀至一线员工、特定主题和具体事务的做法就可以增进即兴的创新价值。

Improvisation and bricolage mean adapting to changing circumstances and looking for new approaches correspondingly.In the hypercompetitive environment nowadays,small and medium-sized enterprises(SMEs)fit and prefer these two tactics for responiling to ever-changing situation and their characters of poor planning and high flexibility.More importantly,resource scarcity is prevalent in SMEs,but a large amount of literature ignore these scarcity and study SMEs'innovation in ideal adequate resource circumstances.Normally,innovation activities,such as research and development,need and consume lots of resources,and SMEs bring forward a large percentage of innovation output although they frequently drop into resource scarcity.It is valuable and interesting to probe into how they overcome the constraint and achieve success in the process of innovation.Improvisation and bricolage often occur when enterprises lack in time or material resources,and therefore,become common behavior tactics in SMEs.Meanwhile,roles of improvisation and bricolage have been roundly questioned and criticized for their denying and discarding plans’effects which are commonplace in nowadays enterprise and seem to constitute the foundation of activities in terms of efficiency and effectiveness in most place.These debatable and conflicting arguments cause confusion in SMEs'practice,and it's necessary to carefully analysis and test the effects of improvisation and bricolage.Especially,SMEs have increasingly become an important force in global innovation,and are largely concerned with effects of improvisation and bricolage in breaking time and resource restraints and seizing the opportunity to innovation,because of their shortage in resource and the characters of innovation activities,such as high-risk,high-investment and extended-cycle.As two common behavior tactics in SMEs,improvisation and bricolage are usually coupled together,and it is important to clarify whether they can promote or interfere the other effect.This paper separately analyzes main effects of improvisation and bricolage and interactive effects between them from the point of SMEs'innovation outputs.Moreover,resource is necessary for all tactics enforcement,and SMEs are often limited in resource and resource-acquire ability while can adjust resource structure accordingly.In order to fully realize the value of improvisation and bricolage in SMEs'innovation process,this paper,therefore,probes into suitable resource structure for these two tactics from the points of quantity relation between absorbed resource and unabsorbed resource.Comparing with those SMEs what pay less attention to or even lack in innovation as the sample,technology-based SMEs benefit for rigorously testification in our research context.The former kind of SMEs are poor in system variation from the perspective of innovation,and cannot show clearly how other factors bring out variation of innovation output,while the latter can be just the opposite.In view of industrial difference and distribution character of technology-based SMEs,this paper selects software firms in Hefei and Nanjing cities as the sample.By performing the multiple linear regression test using questionnaire data from 232 SMEs in software industry with ordinary least squares(OLS)method and the software of SPSS,it confirms that:Firstly,the effects of improvisation and bricolage on SMEs'innovation outputs are inversed-U shape and linear positive,respectively.Namely,applying improvisation tactics appropriately seems most conducive to promoting innovation while more bricolage will induce more innovation output to SMEs.Secondly,coefficient of product item of improvisation and bricolage is negative significantly.It demonstrates that these two tactics can weaken the other one’s effect on SMEs’innovation outputs,and it should be prudent to perfonn these two tactics simultaneously.Thirdly,coefficients of product items of resource structure or its square multiplied by improvisation are positive significantly while the product item referring resource structure and bricolage is positive,but not significant.All of these results together to demonstrate that,it's benefit to maintain more absorbed resource,but not the unabsorbed one,for enhancing improvisation’s effect on SMEs'innovation output.It other words,considering the limitation of total available resources,SMEs should allocate more resource to specific activities and actors to enhance the effect of improvisation on innovation output.From the perspective of SMEs'innovation,these results represent the functions and the roles of improvisation and bricolage separately,what can be further used to clarify the opposite views about their roles.As some scholars promoted,improvisation and bricolage may create chaos and failure to actors.However,our research hypothesis and empirical study results offer rebuttal of these claims,and also point out the necessary of discussing their effects on innovation in the tactics combination level.Moreover,it indicates that absorbing resource and adjusting resource structure can contribute to create favorable environment for these tactics.Furthermore,although improvisation often takes place in the resource scarcity condition,it also needs appropriate resource support,such as absorbed-oriented resource structure.More specifically,results of this study can provide several enlightenment and serve as reference for SMEs dealing with resource scarcity and making efforts on innovation in the future.First,SMEs can enhance innovation output by bricolage tactics,and should regularize,restrain and guide improvisation tactics on its domain and extent.It doesn’t always stand up for the viewpoints that persistently assert bricolage’s benefit for innovation although SMEs prefer this tactics for its flexibility and other advantages.Secondly,both of improvisation and bricolage are suitable in resource scarcity environment,but it doesn't means that enterprises should take them simultaneously.Fulfill of improvisation or bricolage tactics need relevant necessary resource,and SMEs'limited resource can't effectively afford them simultaneously.Thus,one these two tactics will weaken the other’s effect on innovation output instead of strengthening it.In other words,SMEs should carefully take improvisation and bricolage at the same time because for negative interactive effects between them,and it is worth discussing about the symbiotic and compatible relationships between these two common tactics.Thirdly,effects of improvisation are diversified and contextualized,and should be carried out by combination with appropriate resource allocation.Success in fulfilling improvisation needs flexible behaviors and cooperation of employees,and it’s beneficial for realizing innovation value of improvisation definitely to allocate resource to grass-root employees,departments,specific areas and affairs.Unabsorbed resource,such as cash,can be widely used for most contexts,but realization of their value need transform themselves into capacities,labors and other absorbed resource.Transformation therein takes lots of time while greatest value of improvisation lies in the time and speed advantage it can create for enterprise.Thus,comparing with range of application,speed of resource application shows more important and valuable functions for fulfillment of improvisation.