“破旧立新”还是“推陈出新”?——信任环境下的企业双元创新的重新审视

Eradicate the Old and Foster the New or Bring Forth the New through the Old?Re-Examination of Enterprise Ambidextrous Innovation in Trust Environment

非正式制度如何推动企业实现创新驱动发展成为学术界的重要议题。已有研究聚焦于正式制度对企业创新的激励作用,忽视了非正式制度对企业创新的促进作用,且对企业创新异质性行为(双元创新)缺乏区分审视。以世界银行中国制造业调查数据为样本,从社会信任的角度考察非正式制度对企业双元创新(探索式创新与利用式创新)的影响。实证结果发现:(1)社会信任显著促进了企业双元创新行为,特别是探索式创新;(2)非国有产权强化了社会信任对企业探索式创新的促进作用,但在利用式创新中不存在调节作用,意味着在非国有产权下,社会信任对企业探索式创新的正向激励效应更强;(3)正式制度负向调节了社会信任对企业探索式创新的影响,但在利用式创新中的调节效应不显著。进一步的作用机理检验与异质性分析结果表明,社会信任将通过缓解融资约束与增加创新投入对企业双元创新产生激励作用,且社会信任对企业双元创新行为的影响在不同规模与技术水平中存在异质性。

Innovation is not only the source of competitive advantage of enterprises,but also the key to national core competitiveness.The CPC Central Committee attaches great importance to the innovation driven development strategy,and pointed out in the report of the 19th CPC National Congress that"accelerating the construction of an innovative country"is an important aspect of building a modern economic system.Although China's overall innovation capability is rising,many enterprises are still in the traditional factor driven growth mode,and there are relatively few innovative enterprises in the real sense.Therefore,it is particularly necessary to drive enterprises to better build a dual innovation balance system for exploratory innovation and utilization innovation in order to speed up the construction of a world power in science and technology.In recent years,academia has carried out a lot of research on the incentive effect of formal system on enterprise innovation,but ignored the promotion effect of informal system on enterprise innovation,especially the lack of differentiated examination on the heterogeneous behavior of enterprise innovation(ambidextrous innovation).Based on the above research gap,taking the 2012 World Bank survey data of Chinese manufacturing enterprises as the research sample,using Chinese urban business credit as the proxy variable of social trust,and based on probit and tobit estimation methods,this paper empirically analyzes the heterogeneous impact of social trust on enterprise ambidextrous innovation,and explores its internal mechanism from alleviating financing constraints and increasing R&D investment,This paper examines the heterogeneity of social trust on enterprise ambidextrous innovation from the differences of enterprise scale and technological level.The main contributions of this paper are reflected in three levels:first,based on the perspective of dynamic synergy between informal and formal systems,it provides a new research perspective and empirical evidence for the study of the driving factors affecting China's enterprise innovation activities under the new normal.Secondly,it expands the research on the types of enterprise innovation by informal institutions.Based on the ambidextrous innovation theory,it confirms the heterogeneous role of social trust,an informal institution,in enterprise ambidextrous innovation,which makes up for the lack of overall research on enterprise innovation performance.Thirdly,on the practical level,this paper enriches the research on the value effect of social trust on the choice of enterprise innovation strategy,and provides practical enlightenment for Chinese enterprises to choose their own innovation strategy in the current trust environment,that is,exploratory innovation based on"old and new"or utilization innovation strategy based on"newandold".The results show that:first,social trust significantly promotes the ambidextrous innovation behavior of enterprises,especially for exploratory innovation.That is,the higher the trust level of the enterprise,the greater the probability of the enterprise to carry out exploratory innovation behavior and utilization innovation behavior.Second,the nature of property rights positively regulates the relationship between social trust and enterprise exploratory innovation,but it does not have a regulating effect on enterprise utilization innovation.That is,the role of social trust in promoting exploratory innovation is more significant in non-state-owned enterprises,and there is no difference between state-owned enterprises and non-state-owned enterprises.Third,the formal system negatively regulates the relationship between social trust and enterprise exploratory innovation,but it does not have a regulating effect on enterprise utilization innovation.That is,social trust helps to make up for the shortcomings of formal systems in promoting enterprise exploratory innovation,and there is a substitution effect,but this effect does not exist in formal systems in promoting enterprise utilization innovation.Fourth,the research on the internal mechanism of social trust on the ambidextrous innovation behavior of enterprises shows that social trust can significantly alleviate the financing constraints of enterprises,improve the financing environment of enterprises,and provide a better financing environment for enterprises to carry out ambidextrous innovation;Moreover,social trust can significantly increase the R&D investment and provide capital and team support for enterprises to carry out ambidextrous innovation.Based on the above research,four management and policy implications are obtained:first,pay attention to the construction of social trust system,especially the government needs to continue to strengthen the construction of social credit system with enterprise credit investigation as the core,speed up the construction of a"state enterprise individual"comprehensive social credit system,strengthen the construction of dishonesty punishment system and social credit incentive system,and better give play to the important incentive effect of social trust on enterprise innovation.Especially in areas with imperfect formal systems,we need to pay more attention to informal systems such as social trust,which can play an independent role instead of formal systems.Second,we should continue to deepen the reform of state-owned enterprises and encourage the integration of non-public capital and state-owned capital to form mixed ownership enterprises.In order to fully stimulate the innovation incentive effect of social trust,exploring the participation of non-public capital in state-owned capital will help to improve China's technological innovation level from the two dimensions of exploration and utilization.Third,improve the financing system,expand financing channels,reduce financing costs,actively explore and innovate financial instruments,and play an important supporting role in exploratory innovation of enterprises.Fourth,increasing R&D investment by enterprises is an important channel to achieve ambidextrous collaborative innovation,and social trust can become the glue for the integration of enterprise innovation resources,and promote the integration and co-innovation between small and medium-sized enterprises and large enterprises,enterprises and research institutions.