路径依赖对公司数字创业的抑制及免疫机制研究

The Study on the Inhibition and Its Immune Mechanism of Path Dependence on the Corporate Digital Entrepreneurship

路径依赖是在位企业实现数字创业面临的必然挑战,而对企业如何有效利用内外部资源克服路径依赖,现有研究并未形成明确的观点。基于组织免疫理论,遵循抑制—免疫分析思路,从战略联盟和资源拼凑内外视角探究公司数字创业中克服路径依赖的免疫机制。实证结果表明,路径依赖对公司数字创业具有显著抑制作用;战略联盟与资源拼凑均能够对路径依赖的抑制作用产生免疫效应,但针对路径依赖的3个表现维度,战略联盟与资源拼凑发挥的免疫效应存在显著差异。

In recent years,with the accelerated innovation of technological methods including the Internet,big data,cloud computing,artificial intelligence and block chain,etc,the digital technology has played an indispensable role in the process of economic and social development.Hence,it has become a strategic choice that firms grasp the new opportunities of the new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation by devolping the digital economy.For Chinese firms(whether they are traditional manufacturing firms or new technology-based firms),it has also become a strategic path for incumbent companies to promote corporate entrepreneurship and build sustainable development advantages through using digital technology.However,firms may breed dependencies in terms of structure,competition and culture due to the specificity of corporate competitive assets,the rigidity of core competencies and the exclusion of team culture,which will inevitably weaken or even eliminate incumbent firms’understanding and learning of digital technology,and then influence corporate digital entrepreneurship.Strategic alliance is an effective means for enterprises to acquire new knowledge,new technologies and new resources from the outside environments,which opens up the new horizons for enterprises to break through resource constraints and institutional barriers.As a kind of organizational improvisational behavior,resource bricolage is born with the constraints of time,space and pressure of resources,and its management logic of reintegrating resources will help enterprises to get rid of the path lock-in effect.Therefore,this study attempts to clarify the concept of corporate digital entrepreneurship(CDE),and study how companies use strategic alliances and resource bricolage to alleviate or even eliminate the inhibitory effect of path-dependence on corporate digital entrepreneurship(namely,the immune effects of CDE)based on the theory of organizational immunity and the perspective of internal and external analysis.The study obtained data by questionnaires,and measured all concepts by borrowing or adapting from well-established tools.This research mainly collects data from enterprises in Chengdu-Chongqing,Beijing-Tianjin,Jiangsu-Shanghai,and Guangzhou-Shenzhen,and the survey lasted for three months.A total of 800 questionnaires were distributed.Of these,358 valid questionnaires were recovered.The research uses regression analysis method to empirically analyze the inhibitory effect of path dependence and the immune effect of strategic alliance and resource bricolage.The conclusion shows that there is a significantly negative relationship between path dependence and CDE,that is,the inhibitory effect of path dependence is confirmed.In addition,strategic alliance and resource bricolage can negatively moderate the negative relationship between path dependence and CDE,that is,the immune effect.These conclusions indicate that the strategic alliance and resource bricolage adopted by incumbent enterprises can help enterprises overcome the negative influence of path dependence,and promote enterprises to pay attention to and carry out digital entrepreneurial activities.Different from traditional researches on corporate entrepreneurship,this research proposes the concept of CDE based on the realistic background of accelerating the construction of“The Digital China”and vigorously developing the digital economy,which not only innovates the research boundary of corporate entrepreneurship,but also enriches theoretical perspective of digital entrepreneurship.In addition,the research explores the inhibition and immune mechanism of path dependence on digital entrepreneurship based on the theory of organizational immunity,which enriches the cope of empirical research on path dependence.The conclusions have several management inspirations for incumbent firms to effectively overcome path dependence and promote the healthy development of CDE.Firstly,the digital entrepreneurs should fully understand the negative effects of path dependence.Secondly,from the perspective of external analysis,technology-based strategic alliances will help incumbent firms achieve breakthroughs in their competitive dependence,while market-based strategic alliances will help firms alleviate or even eliminate path dependence in terms of competition and culture.Finally,based on the perspective of internal analysis,exploitative resource bricolage can effectively counteract the negative effects caused by structural dependence,while exploratory resource bricolage has a strong immune effect on structural dependence and cultural dependence.