慕强还是畏强?知识可达性与技术合作创新质量

Worship or Fear of the Strong?Knowledge Accessibility and Technical Cooperation Innovation Quality

知识可达性作为一种优势表征在创新研究中未受到足够重视,可能会影响潜在合作者的评价反馈。基于信号理论考察知识可达性对创新价值的有用性以及对高管连锁网络、知识侵权风险的调节作用,运用2008—2020年汽车制造业上市公司数据进行实证检验,结果发现:①知识可达性对焦点企业技术合作创新质量发挥慕强效应,具有正向影响;②高管连锁多样性和连锁密度作为诱发畏强效应的关键要素,负向调节知识可达性与技术合作创新质量关系;③知识侵权风险作为诱发畏强效应的不确定性因素,负向调节知识可达性与技术合作创新质量关系,使高管连锁多样性和连锁密度对知识可达性与技术合作创新质量的负向调节作用在知识侵权风险大的环境中更显著。研究结论可为提升企业知识优势信号吸引力提供理论参考。

The trust of the partners in the process of cooperation construction is an important premise for the focal firms to improve the quality of innovation.However,few existing studies have explored what factors affect the trust of partners in the process of technical cooperation from the perspective of signals,and what effects these factors have on the quality of technical cooperation are still unclear.As an advantage,knowledge accessibility greatly reflects the potential of knowledge combination and the signal of knowledge absorption capacity of an enterprise,and it may affect the evaluation feedback of potential partners,and provide a solution for the uncertainty of signal feedback in the process of technical cooperation.In addition,the interaction of different network relationships connected by the focal firm may have an alternative effect on each other.Therefore,this paper studies the influence of the executive interlocking network relationship on the signal feedback of knowledge potential partners,and the signal environment is an important condition for signal transmission and feedback.Following the signal theory,this paper examines the value and usefulness of knowledge accessibility in innovation and the moderating effect of executive interlocking network and knowledge infringement risk.On the basis of the data of listed automobile manufacturing companies from 2008 to 2020,the zero-inflated negative binomial regression test is conducted,and a series of robustness tests are passed.The results show that(1)knowledge accessibility has a positive effect on the quality of technological cooperation innovation in focal firms.The results show that the world tends to worship strong feedback after capturing the information that the focal firms have strong knowledge creation potential,and is willing to provide"win-win"innovation support for the focal firms to improve their cooperative innovation quality.(2)Interlocking diversity and interlocking density,as the relationship factors that induce the effect of"fearing the strong",negatively influence the relationship between knowledge accessibility and technological cooperation innovation quality.This result confirms that the executive interlocking network relationship and knowledge cooperation relationship are mutually substitutable.The large-scale or diversified interlocking relationship makes knowledge partners realize that the focal firm has sufficient choice space to replace the most suitable partner in a short time,which gives rise to awareness of the crisis of knowledge partners being replaced,and the collision of the two relationships inhibits the quality of cooperative innovation.(3)Knowledge infringement risk,as an uncertain situational factor inducing the effect of"fearing the strong",negatively moderates the relationship between knowledge accessibility and technological cooperation innovation quality;The negative moderating effects of executive interlocking diversity and interlocking density on knowledge accessibility and technological cooperation innovation quality are more significant in the environment with a high risk of knowledge infringement.The academic contributions are mainly reflected in three aspects.(1)By exploring the direct relationship between knowledge accessibility and the quality of cooperative innovation,it fills the signal gap that highlights the utilization effect of knowledge assets in the innovation process.(2)From the decoupling view of social network and knowledge network,this paper analyzes the signal constraint effect of the executive chain network,identifies the inducing factors of the negative influence of"fearing the strong"feedback caused by knowledge accessibility,and expands the cross-application boundary of network theory and signal theory.(3)It is clear that the knowledge infringement risk is a situational factor that aggravates the negative cooperation decisions made by the outside,and it leads to the knowledge collaborators'distrust of the interlocking network of the executives of the focal firm.This negative moderating effect caused by situational factors improves the knowledge signal transmission framework.The conclusions encourage enterprises to recognize when the advantage signal will have a positive or negative effect.In practice,enterprises could then rationally use"intimate relationship"to maximize the attractive role of knowledge accessibility.Meanwhile,enterprises should pay attention to the management of senior executives and the analysis of the knowledge interaction environment and enhance the effective screening of chain cooperation,so as to avoid missing inventor cooperation opportunities conducive to knowledge reorganization.