技术并购中主并企业关键研发者合作网络变化对其创造力的影响

The impact of the change of cooperative network of key inventors in technology mergers and acquisitions on their creativity

当前,技术并购成为企业获取所需知识、信息、技术等资源,维持并提高创新能力的重要途径。然而,企业并购行为会引起主并企业中关键研发者所在的创新合作网络的变化。创新合作网络作为关键研发者发挥创造力的载体,其变化势必带来关键研发者创造力的波动,而关键研发者的创造力又对企业创新绩效的提升起着举足轻重的作用。因此,探究技术并购情境下主并企业中关键研发者创造力的影响因素,有助于企业"抓大放小",增强并购的效果。本文以24家高技术企业中专利数据为样本,采用多元线性回归模型进行实证分析。结果表明:技术并购后,主并企业关键研发者度中心性、中介中心性、接近中心性的增加都会促进其创造力的提高,而主并企业关键研发者结构洞增加会显著降低其创造力。同时,关键研发者的知识宽度对上述关系有着调节作用。具体而言,技术并购后,主并企业关键研发者的知识宽度显著负向调节中心性变化与创造力之间的关系,显著正向调节结构洞变化与创造力之间的关系。研究结论丰富了主并企业关键研发者创造力影响因素的情境研究,对关键研发者在技术并购后,如何维持并提升创造力具有重要的参考意义。

With the increasing dependence of enterprises on innovation ability,relying solely on internal research and development has been unable to meet the needs of enterprises.More and more enterprises have shifted their objectives to external technology acquisition.In recent years,the government has implemented a series of policies to encourage technology mergers and acquisitions,thus stimulating the technology mergers and acquisitions market.Acquiring resources through technology mergers and acquisitions has become one of the effective ways for enterprises to rapidly improve their technological level and innovation ability.The technology mergers and acquisitions have not only broken and restructured the innovation collaboration network of key R&D personnel of the mergering enterprises and the target enterprises,but also impacted their innovation environment.However,people pay more attention to key R&D personnel of the target enterprises than those of the mergering enterprises.This present paper studied the impact mechanism of changes in the innovation collaboration network on key R&D personnel of the mergering enterprises after technology mergers and acquisitions.Based on this point of view,this present paper took all patent all of 24 high-tech enterprise from 1998 to 2017 as the period,chose224 key R&D personnel,and carried out research on the data of their invention patents and utility patents.The innovation collaboration network of key R&D personnel before and after technology M&A was built in accordance with the patent data,and the variables were calculated.Finally,the multiple linear regression model was used to verify the hypothesis.In order to further verify the hypothesis,the regulatory role of knowledge width and the boundary effect map of key R&D personnel of the mergering enterprises were drawn.The influence of network centrality and structural holes of key R&D personnel on creativity and the regulatory role of knowledge width on their relationship were discussed.The results indicated that after technology merger and acquisition,the increase in the centrality of key R&D personnel of the mergering enterprises has a positive impact on their creativity,which revealed that higher centrality is beneficial to their access to more resources,and further improve their creativity.The increase of structural holes occupied by key R&D personnel of the mergering enterprises has a negative impact on their creativity,which means that although occupying excessive structural holes can obtain more heterogeneous and diverse resources,it could easily trigger the trust problem of the key R&D personnel of the mergering enterprises,and the processing and utilization of knowledge will exhaust more time and energy,thus restricting its creativity.At the same time,the knowledge width of key R&D personnel of the mergering enterprise plays a significant moderating effect,specifically,the knowledge width of key R&D personnel of the mergering enterprise negatively regulates the relationship between degree centrality,betweenness centrality,and closeness centrality changes and the creativity of key R&D personnel of the mergering enterprises,while positively regulates the relationship between structural hole changes and the creativity of key R&D personnel of the mergering enterprises.The theoretical significance of this present paper is to study the relationship between the dynamic changes of network and individual innovation performance after technology M&A starting from the network characteristics of key R&D personnel and from the perspective of the mergering enterprises.Theoretically,it enriched the situational factors of the research on the impact of key R&D personnel’s creativity and has important reference significance for the key R&D personnel of the mergering enterprises to maintain and further improve their creativity after technology mergers and acquisitions.Secondly,unlike previous studies,which focused on the role of knowledge width in the connection between relational levels,this study explored the regulatory role of knowledge width in the network structure of key R&D personnel of the mergering enterprises and added a new perspective to the study of knowledge width.The conclusion of the study provides important management inspiration for enterprises to manage key R&D personnel of the mergering enterprises and to effectively realize technological innovation,and enhance their competitiveness and innovation performance.Firstly,after technology merger and acquisition,enterprises should engage as many key R&D personnel as possible in different new research and development projects and accumulate extensive exchanges.Secondly,enterprises should rationally allocate collaboration opportunities between key R&D personnel and other R&D personnel,to improve their integration efficiency of heterogeneous knowledge.Thirdly,the allocation of the innovation collaboration networks of key R&D personnel of the mergering enterprises should be adjusted in combina ntion with the characteristics of their knowledge width.