伙伴社会价值对企业突破性创新的影响研究

A research on the impact of partner′s social value on firms′critical innovation

本研究基于交易成本理论分析了在研发联盟组合中,研发合作伙伴的社会价值(中心企业的研发合作伙伴的伙伴数的平均值来衡量)如何作用于企业的突破性创新;同时分析了研发联盟伙伴技术多样性以及地理多样性的调节作用。基于1997年至2017年中国医药制造业构建研发联盟的数据,采用负二项回归分析发现:(1)在研发联盟组合中,研发联盟伙伴社会价值与企业突破性创新的关系为倒U形;(2)研发联盟伙伴技术多样性减弱了伙伴社会价值对企业突破性创新的倒U作用;(3)研发联盟伙伴地理多样性增强了伙伴社会价值对企业突破性创新的倒U作用。本文的研究结论不仅完善了现有的研发联盟组合文献和伙伴多样性研究文献,还基于交易成本理论为企业管理者进行伙伴选择及联盟组合管理提供重要的思路启发。

In a volatile business environment,firms usually build and operate a set of R&D alliances with multiple external partners as R&D alliance portfolios to achieve economic and technological objectives.However,due to the less transparent information disclosure process in emerging markets,it is difficult for firms to obtain reliable information about potential partners through public sources.As a result,firms trend to view the high frequency with which a specific partner is selected by other firms as a convincing signal of quality,because others′actions can help the focal firm to reduce information asymmetries associating with partner selection decisions.Thus,the R&D alliance portfolio is often featured with high partners′social value.Previous studies have examined how partners′social value of the R&D alliance portfolio influence firms′innovation outcomes,however,the conclusions are inconsistent.Specifically,how partners′social value influences firms′critical innovation still remains unknown.This study attempts to fill this gap by drawing on transaction cost theory to examine how partners′social value of R&D alliance portfolio(which is measured as the average of the linkages of all partners in R&D alliance portfolio)influences firms′critical innovation.Because few of the previous studies focus on exploring the boundary effect of partners′social value on firms′critical innovation,while,the attributes of participants in the alliance portfolio can indeed affect the information obtained by the focal firm from external partners,especially the technological diversity and geographic diversity of R&D partners in the R&D alliance portfolio.Still,how partners′technological diversity and geographic diversity moderate the relationship between partners′social value and firms′critical innovation remains unclear.The empirical study,leveraging Chinese listed biopharmaceutical firms during a twenty-year period(1997-2017),and using a negative binomial regression model,aims to fill these gaps by posing two research questions.First,how partners′social value of R&D alliance portfolio influences firms′critical innovation.Second,how partners′technological diversity and geographic diversity moderate the relationship between partners′social value and firms′critical innovation.Our results indicate that:(1)Partners′social value has an inverted U-shaped effect on firms′critical innovation;(2)Partners′technological diversity weakens the inverted U-shaped effect of partners′social value on firms′critical innovation.The higher the technological diversity of the partners,the inverted-U shaped relationship between partners′social value and firms′innovation is weakened;(3)Partners′geographic diversity has enhanced the inverted U-shaped effect of partners′social value on firms′critical innovation.The higher the geographical diversity of partners,the inverted-U shaped relationship between partners′social value and firms′critical innovation is steeper.Because existing research provides multiple measurements of firms′critical innovation,we also use the number of citations of firms′patent as the measurement of firms′critical innovation to conduct a robustness test,the results further indicate that the conclusion of this article is still robust.Relevant research results not only help supplement the existing literature on alliance portfolio and partner diversity but also can provide useful references for managers of the focal firms to select partners and manage their R&D alliance portfolio,thereby improving their innovation capabilities and innovation investment efficiency.