问题导向搜索与创业企业新产品创新绩效——来自苹果App Store应用平台的证据

Problemistic search and new product innovation performance of start-ups——Evidence from Apple App Store application platform

创业企业在过去产品失败的情况下如何进行创新策略调整始终是学术界关注的热点问题。本文基于问题导向搜索理论,考察了平台上的创业企业在过去产品失败时,未来产品研发的搜索边界和搜索距离对新产品创新绩效的影响机制,并利用来自苹果App Store应用商店中获取的2018年5月至2019年2月期间的一组新数据集,借助文本分析的方法进行了实证检验,结果发现:相较于创业初期研发成功的企业,在创业初期研发不成功的企业跨越先前的搜索边界,从事跨市场类别的产品研发更有利于企业下一款新产品创新绩效水平的提高。同时,对于创业初期研发不成功的企业来说,在选定的市场类别中进行非本地搜索更有利于企业新产品创新绩效水平的提升。研究结论旨在丰富平台市场背景下创业企业的问题导向搜索理论,对创业企业在应用平台上的新产品研发策略选择具有重要启示。

How to adjust innovative strategies for startups under the circumstances of past product failures has always been a hot issue.Based on the problemistic search theory,this paper examines the impact of search boundary and search distance in future product development on the new product innovation performance when the startups on the platform failed in the past.We use a new dataset from May 2018 to February 2019 obtained from Apple App Store and test the hypothesis empirically by using the method of text analysis.The results show that compared with the successful entrepreneurial startups,the unsuccessful entrepreneurial startups are more likely to improve new product innovation performance by crossing previous search boundaries and engaging in category-spanning new product development.Moreover,for the unsuccessful entrepreneurial startups,non-local search in the selected market categories is more conducive to the improvement of new product innovation performance.The research aims to enrich the problemistic search theory of entrepreneurial startups under the background of the platform market,and has important implications for the choice of new product development strategies for startups on the application platform.