协同创新中知识距离对知识融合过程的门槛效应研究——以新能源行业为例

The Threshold Effect of Knowledge Distance on the Process of Knowledge Fusion in Collaborative Innovation:An Example from the New Energy Industry

从协同主体间知识距离视角,采用Hansen面板门槛模型,构建不同知识距离下知识基础与知识投入影响知识融合的门槛模型,并基于2015-2020年中国新能源行业上市公司面板数据进行实证分析。结果表明,知识距离在知识基础、知识投入影响知识融合的过程中均存在双重门槛效应。其中,随着知识距离扩大,知识基础宽度对知识融合具有“抑制-促进-抑制”的作用效果,且在高知识距离下抑制作用显著增强;知识基础深度对知识融合呈现出“促进-抑制”的作用效果;在知识距离的作用下知识投入对知识融合存在倒U型作用。因此,在协同创新中,组织应选择资源互补且领域相关的合作伙伴,以在融合过程中最大化激发组织知识潜能,促进新知识产生,提高组织创新能力。

High-quality innovation is stressed by the Chinese government and cooperation between enterprises can improve innovation competitiveness and strengthen financial support by gathering knowledge and technology resources,especially for enterprises of some new developing industries,such as new energy enterprises.However,the enterprise scale,research field,and technical capability can be multiplexed among those partners in practice,so the cooperation among different enterprises will be significantly different.As a result,the key and potential problem is how to have the proper combination among all innovation enterprises with various ability levels so as to realize technical challenges and increase technical competence to the utmost extent.Knowledge fusion as a foundation of collaborative innovation,at the micro level,is the key step in the production process of new knowledge,so the quantity of it in cooperation will be the measurement basis of innovation.In this process,it will lead to a negative impact when the capabilities of cooperative enterprises are extremely mismatched,and therefore,it is the premise for knowledge fusion to select the appropriate collaborative partners,which has been described as the knowledge distance.Thus,the study focuses on the research gap of the connection between knowledge fusion and knowledge distance neglected by previous studies,and initiatively regards knowledge base and knowledge input as internal factors in knowledge fusion,and aims at finding the proper knowledge distance that can promote knowledge fusion in the maximum extent by knowledge base and knowledge input.This paper uses the Hansen panel threshold model which can find the appropriate range of knowledge distance to significantly increase the quantity of knowledge fusion,and selects the panel data of listed companies from 2015 to 2020 in the new energy industry and finally 60 companies are obtained for data integrity of the variables studied.The results show that knowledge distance has a double threshold effect in the research framework of knowledge base and knowledge input on knowledge fusion.Specifically,firstly,when the knowledge distance gradually decreases,the result that knowledge base width affects knowledge fusion early manifests as negative inhibition,then becomes positive promotion,and finally turns into negative inhibition again,and if the knowledge distance is too high or too low,there is a negative affect to promote knowledge fusion.Besides,the knowledge base width has a stronger inhibitory effect on knowledge fusion under high knowledge distance compared with the low,and only when the knowledge distance is in a suitable range,the knowledge base width shows a promoting effect.Secondly,in the connection between knowledge base depth and knowledge fusion,if knowledge distance exceeds a certain limit,it will obviously show that knowledge base depth negatively inhibits knowledge fusion,and only when the knowledge distance is low can the knowledge base depth positively promote the level of knowledge integration.Thirdly,knowledge input will significantly inhibit the level of knowledge fusion when the knowledge distance is low,and as the knowledge distance increases,the inhibitory effect is significantly weakened,but when the knowledge distance is too high and exceeds a certain degree,the inhibitory effect is strongly and significantly enhanced,and it exceeds the inhibitory strength of knowledge input on knowledge fusion under low knowledge distance.Above all,this paper proposes the following practical suggestions.First,it is necessary to ensure that there are similar parts in technical fields among cooperative enterprises,so that knowledge can be combined more efficiently;second,there should be different knowledge and new technical fields among them so that it can provide new innovation inspiration,improve the organizations'innovation motivation,and maintain the innovation enthusiasm for them.Thus,the technical fields of collaborative enterprises should be both complementary in technical resources and related fields,so that the knowledge base can exert the greatest positive effect in the process of knowledge integration,promote the generation of new knowledge,and improve the organizations'technical innovation capability,so enterprises can maintain and improve competitiveness in the market.Moreover,with regard to the selection of partners,it is necessary to avoid large gaps of development scale among cooperative enterprises,otherwise it will negatively affect cooperation willingness and inhibit knowledge fusion in collaborative innovation.