企业合作研发模式对创新质量的影响——基于中国专利数据的实证研究

Influence of Corporate Collaborative Innovation Patterns on Innovation Quality:An Empirical Analysis of Chinese Patents

本文使用1992—2016年第一申请人为企业的授权发明专利数据,通过手动整理申请人类别信息,构建合作研发模式指标,分析企业合作研发以及不同合作研发模式对企业高质量创新能力的影响。研究发现:整体而言,企业合作研发并不能提高企业创新质量;但将合作研发区分为不同模式后,产学研合作相比其他合作模式产生的专利被引数量更高,表明产学研合作对企业创新成果质量有显著的正向影响。在使用工具变量处理内生性问题、替换被解释变量,以及增加控制变量进行稳健性检验后,该结果仍然保持稳健。机制分析显示,产学研合作对企业创新绩效产生影响的机制是更高水平的信息共享。信息共享程度的提高能够显著提升企业创新质量,而与其他合作研发模式相比,产学研合作对信息共享的促进作用更大,因而能够显著提高合作创新质量。异质性分析揭示了产学研合作为何能够更好地促进信息共享,产学研合作中合作主体之间较弱的竞争关系,以及产学研合作技术的较强初创性和基础性特征均有利于提高合作者之间的信息共享程度。本文的研究发现揭示了产学研合作对企业高质量创新的重要性,对于中国如何建设成为创新型国家具有启示意义。

Innovation is a long-term driving force for economic development,and corporations are crucial in a nation's high-quality development,as they are crucial contributors to innovation and technology transfer.High investment,high risks,and complex technologies involved in innovation activities necessitate companies to engage in cooperation.However,the effects and mechanisms of cooperation on innovation outcomes have not been carefully studied.This paper investigates the effects of different cooperation patterns on corporate innovation using Chinese patent grant data from 1992 to 2016 with a corporation being the first applicant,and by constructing different cooperation patterns based on manually collected applicant information.The findings suggest that co-patenting with research institutions leads to more citations than independent patenting,indicating that industry-university-research-institutions cooperation(IUR cooperation)has a significantly positive impact on corporate innovation.This result remains robust after using inventor family background as an instrumental variable,replacing the dependent variable,or adding additional control variables.The empirical analysis shows that this positive effect is accounted for by information sharing between the corporation and its collaborators,and that IUR cooperation outperforms other types in promoting information sharing.And in line with expectations,the heterogeneity analysis reveals that weak competition among a corporation and its collaborators,as well as the fundamental and pioneering natures of collaborative technologies in IUR cooperation enhance information sharing among collaborators.By revealing how IUR cooperation enhances corporate innovation quality,the current paper thus contributes to the literature and provides important policy insights.Regarding the economics literature,our findings complement the existing research on how cooperation and IUR cooperation impact innovation quality,how competitive relationships influence information sharing,and how foundational and pioneering knowledge help enhance innovation.Regarding policy implications,the findings support policies promoting cooperation between companies and entities with weaker competitive ties,including research institutions and firms positioned upstream and downstream in their industry chains,and policies supporting collaborative approaches for corporations engaged in fundamental and pioneering technology research and development.As such,this study helps provide insight into how to develop an innovation-driven economy,by examining the impact of IUR cooperation on innovation quality.