中小企业非研发与研发创新活动交互效应研究

A study on the interactive effect of non-R&D innovation and R&D innovation on performance of SMEs

企业的研发活动一直是创新研究的焦点,而其内部不基于研发的多样化、行之有效的创新性活动常常受到学术界的忽视。当一些中小企业面临着资源约束时,能通过有效利用手边的研发和非研发资源,整合构建起自己的创新能力,获取持续竞争优势。但现有研究对于资源约束情境下企业研发与非研发创新活动共同作用下可能产生的交互效应缺乏关注。本研究基于对中国中小企业的调查,实证探索了非研发创新与研发创新的交互效应对企业绩效的影响。研究结果表明:外部技术采用与改良、产品/服务定制、组织和市场创新三种非研发创新活动和研发创新活动在对企业创新绩效的影响上呈替代效应;外部技术采用与改良和研发创新的替代效应不稳定;模仿创新对企业创新绩效的影响不显著。研究对于中小企业如何依靠行之有效的多样化创新模式提升创新绩效具有指导借鉴意义,对我国中小企业创新政策的优化也具有参考价值。

R&D(research and development) has been a hot issue in the field of innovation study. However, the effect that non-R&D innovation has on enterprise performance is often ignored. In fact, this kind of innovation activities is an important source of the SMEs’ competitive advantages. For SMEs, when they face the constrain of resources, they can effectively use the handy resources including R&D and non-R&D resources to build innovative capabilities and acquire consistent competitive advantages. Existing study ignored the interactive effect between R&D innovation and non-R&D innovation on enterprise performance in our country’s SMEs. Based on interviews and 345 survey samples of SMEs in China, we find that external technology adoption, product and service customization, organizational innovation and marketing innovation and R&D innovation have significant substitution effect on innovation performance. The substitution effect between external technology adoption and R&D innovation is unstable. Imitation innovation has no significant effect on innovation performance. This study can give some advices for SMEs to rely on low cost innovation modes(e.g., non-R&D innovation) to improve innovation ability and performance. Also, it is valuable for the optimization of China’s SMEs’ innovation policies.