TMT如何驱动探索式创新?基于社会网络和认知交互的视角

How does TMT drive exploratory innovation?From the perspective of social network and cognitive interaction

作为战略管理与创新管理的交叉领域,社会网络研究日益成为学界关注的热点。然而,TMT社会网络对探索式创新的有效性及其作用机制尚有待深入探讨。结合社会网络理论与高阶理论,本文运用多元回归分析和Bootstrap方法,从认知交互视角对TMT社会网络影响探索式创新的内在过程进行剖析。研究分析表明TMT内部和外部社会网络是企业追求探索式创新的重要决定因素,认知交互在TMT内部与外部社会网络和探索式创新之间均具有部分中介效应。同时,环境越动荡,认知交互对探索式创新的正向影响就越强,认知交互在TMT社会网络与探索式创新之间所起的中介效应也越强。研究结果深化了探索式创新前因理论研究,有助于把握TMT社会网络影响机理的内在规律,对推动企业创新驱动发展战略具有重要的研究价值。

As enterprise exploratory innovation becomes more and more essential in the intense dynamic environment,antecedents of exploratory innovation have been studied from a new perspective.The top management team(TMT)has its own uniqueness.TMT members play a relatively powerful role in the impact of innovation strategy choices on the organization and are considered as key contributors to exploratory innovation.TMT social network provides a link between the enterprise and its environment,coordinates the updating of innovation strategy decisions(including the adjustment of organizational direction),and is closely related to the innovation exploration ability of the organization.However,the research on TMT social network is still superficial,and the crucial value of TMT social network in the field of exploratory innovation needs to be“focused and deepened”.Therefore,it is urgent to clarify the relationship between TMT social network and exploratory innovation.Surpassing previous studies that used TMT demographics,behavior,and process attributes to explain organizational innovation,this research develops a“TMT social network-cognitive interaction-exploratory innovation”research framework to enhance the understanding of how TMT drives exploratory innovation performance.Besides,environmental volatility is further incorporated into the model to test the moderated effect on the cognitive interaction and exploratory innovation.This will help to explain more differences,opening TMT social network to exploratory innovation path“black box”.The research objects of this study are senior managers of enterprises.The questionnaire respondents are limited to managers with senior positions or titles or managers of subordinate departments with decision-making power over major business activities of enterprises.The survey data are obtained from two sources:1)questionnaire surveys by the research team members in the MBA and EMBA training courses of Shanghai universities(must be students of corporate executives);2)questionnaire surveys conducted on senior managers when the research group performs consultation and training for enterprises.In this study,the maturity scale in the literature is used to measure the main variables.All variables measured are collected by Likert 7 scale.SPSS and AMOS are employed to analyze the data and test the hypotheses.The data analyses included data preparation,normality checks,reliability and validity checks,confirmatory factor analysis,descriptive statistics,linear regression and bootstrap.The results demonstrate that TMT internal social network has a significant positive impact on exploratory innovation,suggesting that the internal social network provides a good interactive atmosphere for TMT members to communicate freely,discover and discuss different innovative approaches.Besides,TMT external social network has a positive impact on exploratory innovation,indicating that TMT,who has close ties with external partners,possesses more exploratory innovation owing to its more open management model and a more diverse cognitive framework.Cognitive interaction has a mediating effect in the relationship between TMT internal and external social networks and exploratory innovation.Meanwhile,environmental turbulence plays a significant moderating effect in the relationship between cognitive interaction and exploratory innovation,and the mediating effect of cognitive interaction is stronger under high environmental turbulence.This indicates that TMT cognitive interaction with cooperation,coordination,and specialized distributed knowledge will play a stronger role in exploratory innovation under turbulent environments than stable environments.The theoretical contributions of this study are concluded as follows.First,this study provides a more comprehensive explanation of the effectiveness of TMT from the perspective of social networks.It opens the“black box”of how TMT social network drives exploratory innovation,providing a good prospect for future research on TMT social network analysis.Second,cognitive interaction positive innovation performance has been widely recognized while little is known about the boundary factors affecting this relationship.In this study,the moderating effect of environmental turbulence in TMT cognitive interaction and exploratory innovation is explored,and the boundary conditions of the relationship between TMT cognitive interaction and exploratory innovation are extended.Finally,this study is the first to integrate the two different perspectives of social network and cognitive interaction into a model.This kind of comprehensive research is of special significance considering that it contributes to the development of a more complete and accurate view of how TMT affects exploratory innovation at the company level.