产学研融合促进中小制造企业高质量发展了吗?———中介效应与调节效应分析

Does industry-university-research integration promote the high-quality development of small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises?Analyses of mediating effects and moderating effects

构建产学研深度融合的技术创新体系成为当前推动我国中小制造企业转型升级迈向高质量发展的重要路径,引发了商业实践和理论层面的广泛关注。然而,中小制造企业如何有效发挥产学研融合价值进而实现企业高质量发展这一过程机制的“黑箱”目前仍未揭开。本文整合资源基础理论、资源管理理论和高阶梯队理论等,在明晰产学研融合内涵和特征基础上,构建了中小制造企业产学研融合推动高质量发展的过程机制模型,引入企业探索性创新行为作为中介变量来解释产学研融合对企业高质量发展的具体作用路径,并剖析高管团队异质性对这一作用路径的调节作用机理。通过选取中国中小板制造业上市公司作为研究对象,本文实证检验发现:产学研融合有利于促进中小制造企业开展探索性创新行为;中小制造企业的探索性创新行为促进了企业的高质量发展,并在产学研融合与企业高质量发展关系之间发挥显著的中介效应。而高管团队异质性不仅正向调节了产学研融合与企业探索性创新行为之间的关系,还进一步调节了企业探索性创新行为在产学研融合与企业高质量发展关系间的中介效应,即高管团队异质性较高时,产学研融合能够通过中小制造企业的探索性创新行为实现对资源更为有效的整合和利用,从而推动企业高质量发展。本文的研究发现有助于深入认识产学研融合影响中小制造企业高质量发展的作用路径和边界条件,同时对中小制造企业高质量发展实践有重要的现实指导意义。

At present,China′s economy has steadily entered the stage of high-quality development.The paradigm of“quality-centered”development has put forward higher requirements for enterprises,especially small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises(SMEs).Since universities and research institutions are widely recognized as an important source of external knowledge for enterprises,building a technological innovation system with the integration of industry,university and research(IUR)has become an important path to promote the SMEs′transformation and upgrading in China and ultimately achieve high-quality development.Recent studies have provided partial insights into the integration of IUR and the impact mechanism of the IUR resources on the enterprise′s performance.However,it is not clear what the specific connotation of IUR integration is and how SMEs can effectively leverage the value of IUR resources to achieve their own high-quality development,i.e.,the“black box”of the process mechanism.Based on the academic gaps in existing research and the increasing practice of deep integration of IUR,we propose a process model of IUR integration for SMEs′high-quality development.First,this study clarifies the conceptual connotation of IUR integration and deconstructs the specific characteristics from three dimensions:portfolio integration,subject integration,and chain integration.Second,viewing from the Resource Management Theory perspective,this study introduces the exploratory innovation behavior of SMEs to gain more accurate insight into the value of strategic behaviors of firms based on IUR resources,and further directly examines the mediating role of exploratory innovation behavior in the relationship between IUR integration and the high-quality development of SMEs.Finally,based on the perspective of Upper Echelon Theory,this study further explores the boundary mechanism of the heterogeneous characteristics of the executive team in the process of IUR integration affecting the high-quality development of SMEs.The study selects the data of 234 listed Chinese SMEs from 2013—2016 as the research sample to test the above hypotheses,and acquires the secondary data from the firm′s annual reports,official website,and CSMAR database.The empirical test of this paper finds that:1)the IUR integration is conducive to the exploratory innovation behavior of SMEs;2)the exploratory innovation behavior promotes the high-quality development of SMEs and plays a significant mediating effect between the IUR integration and the high-quality development;3)the TMT heterogeneity not only positively moderates the relationship between IUR integration and exploratory innovation behavior of SMEs,but also further moderates the mediating effect of exploratory innovation behavior of SMEs,i.e.,when the TMT heterogeneity is high,IUR integration can achieve more effective integration and utilization of resources through exploratory innovation behavior,thus promoting the high-quality development of SMEs.This study contributes to the previous literature in three main aspects.First,it achieves the first measurement of IUR integration,which provides a theoretical basis for empirically exploring how IUR integration in SMEs affects their high-quality development.Second,by innovatively introducing the exploratory innovation behavior of SMEs,this study combines both the traditional Resource-Based View and the Resource Management Theory,opens the“black box”of the process mechanism between IUR integration and high-quality development,thereby provides support and direction for SMEs to explore the achieving path of high-quality development.Thirdly,unlike previous studies that have paid less attention to the role played by executive team in enterprise resource management,this study incorporates the team-level variable of TMT heterogeneity into the logical framework of“IUR integration-exploratory innovation behavior-high-quality development”,which breaks through the theoretical perspective of previous IUR studies based mainly on Resource-Based View and Knowledge-Based View,and further improves the integration of Upper Echelon Theory with Resource-Based View and Resource Management Theory.In the practical sense,it is proposed from the micro level that SMEs should firmly grasp the strategic development direction of deep integration of IUR,and try to configure and improve their own IUR integration system from three aspects:portfolio integration,subject integration and chain integration.In addition,it is necessary to continuously optimize the structure of the executive team and select executive members with different functional backgrounds and experiences,so as to help enterprises obtain more diversified views and information from the integration of IUR,creatively discover new technological opportunities and finally achieve high-quality development.