协作研发伙伴多元化、知识网络凝聚性与企业新产品开发绩效

Partnership Diversity of R&D Collaboration,Knowledge Network Cohesion and New Product Development Performance

本文利用2000-2017年我国汽车产业中868家汽车制造企业的面板数据,实证检验了协作研发伙伴多元化、知识网络凝聚性对新产品开发绩效的影响。实证结果表明:伙伴多元化促进企业新产品开发绩效的提升;知识网络局部凝聚性负向影响企业新产品开发绩效,但正向调节伙伴多元化对新产品开发绩效的正向作用;知识网络全局凝聚性对企业新产品开发绩效的负向影响不显著,但对伙伴多元化与企业新产品开发绩效关系的负向调节作用显著。本文通过整合知识外部获取和内部开发两个视角,丰富了协作研发伙伴关系配置与企业新产品开发绩效关系的研究,为知识库属性在企业新产品开发活动中的复杂作用提供了实证检验。研究结果对汽车制造企业优化知识管理决策具有重要意义。

New product development is a strategic means for firms to maintain their market positions and obtain continuous competitive advantages. Both of the internal knowledge development and the external knowledge search have important inf luences in the new product development activities. R&D collaboration affects the process of new product development by promoting innovation activities which helps to accelerate the product renewal speed and increase the product novelty. However, the effect of the configuration of R&D collaboration partnership on the new product development performance still needs to be further clarified and improved. At the same time, the new product development is a process of creating new knowledge through integrating a variety of knowledge streams, and is closely related to the knowledge integration across different technological fields. How to achieve efficient internal knowledge integration is also of great significance to improving the performance of new product development. Based on this logic, this paper explores the effects of diversified R&D collaboration partnerships and the knowledge network cohesion(local cohesion and global cohesion) on the performance of new product development, respectively. On the other hand, the success of a firm to obtain the required heterogeneous knowledge through R&D collaboration usually depends on its absorption ability, which is closely related to the firm’s internal knowledge development. In order to improve the efficiency of external knowledge acquisition, firms need to further clarify the interaction relationship between the configuration of R&D collaboration partnership and internal knowledge base so that the efficiency and effectiveness of new product development could be ensured. Therefore, this paper also introduces the local knowledge network cohesion and the global knowledge network cohesion as contingency factors into the effect model of diversified R&D collaboration partnerships on the performance of new product development.Based on the manually collected panel data of 868 firms in Chinese automobile industry from 2000 to 2017, this paper uses the negative binomial regression with Stata software according to the features of the sample date. On the basis of the Hausman results, the fixed effect models are employed in this paper to empirically verify the inf luence of diversified R&D collaboration partnerships and the knowledge network cohesion on the performance of a firm’s new product development. To further verify the robustness of the empirical results, the Poisson regression model is also used for the robustness analysis. The empirical results show that diversified R&D collaboration partnerships promote the performance of a firm’s new product development;the local cohesion of a firm’s knowledge network negatively affects the performance of new product development, and positively affects the positive effect of diversified R&D collaboration partnerships on the performance of new product development;the global cohesion of a firm’s knowledge network negatively affects the positive effect of the R&D collaboration partnership diversity on the performance of new product development, but its negative effect on the performance of new product development is not significant.This paper has several theoretical contributions. Firstly, considering that the advantages and disadvantages of R&D collaboration in the process of a firm’s cooperation partnership configuration still need strong empirical tests, this paper verifies the positive effect of diversified R&D collaboration partnerships on the performance of new product development. Secondly, a firm’s knowledge base is the driving source for conducting creative activities and solving problems. Thus, this paper reveals the inf luences of local knowledge network cohesion and global knowledge network cohesion on the performance of new product development from the perspective of the relational structure of the knowledge base. The findings expand the relevant studies on the relationship between a firm’s knowledge base and the performance of new product development. Finally, as the knowledge base within the firm would impact the learning and integration efficiency of the external new knowledge, this paper analyzes the moderating effects of local knowledge network cohesion and global knowledge network cohesion on the relationship between diversified R&D collaboration partnerships and the performance of new product development. This helps to construct an integrated theoretical framework by revealing the relationship among R&D collaboration, knowledge base and new product development.This paper also makes several practical contributions. First, patent research and development has become the core element in the process of the new product development. The automobile manufacturing firms in China should actively participate in R&D collaboration in the stage of patent research and development, and establish diversified R&D collaboration relationships to complement each other’s resources. This is beneficial for firms to develop the advanced new technologies and new products which helping to obtain the competitive advantages in the market. At the same time, the sample data show that some automobile manufacturing firms in China pay too much attention to carrying out a series of innovative activities based on the local extent of knowledge within the knowledge base. Nevertheless, this specialization brought by local knowledge cohesion is not conducive to the improvement of the new product development performance. Thus, the automobile manufacturing firms in China should realize the disadvantages of the technology development within a local scope, and should be prepared for dealing with this situation in order to realize the improvement of the new product development performance. Finally, managers in China’s automobile manufacturing firms should take the internal knowledge cohesion characteristics and the R&D collaboration strategies into consideration in order to make more effective management decisions. For the automobile manufacturing firms with higher local knowledge cohesion or lower global knowledge cohesion, they may expand cooperation channels. In this situation, the firms could utilize the complementary and heterogeneous knowledge from the partners to complete R&D activities, which helps to promote the performance of the firms’ new product development. For the automobile manufacturing firms with lower local knowledge cohesion or higher global knowledge cohesion, they may reduce the scope of R&D collaboration partnership. In this case, the advantages of external knowledge search are easier to be exerted in the process of new product development, which finally promotes the performance of the firms’ new product development.