研发联盟、开放式创新与企业全要素生产率提升

R&D Alliance, Open Innovation and Enterprise Total Factor Productivity Growth

研发联盟、开放式创新作为企业研发创新的重要组织与模式,对促进企业全要素生产率提升、实现企业高质量发展具有重要意义。本文从企业研发联盟“关系建立—联合创新—价值获取”的开放式创新阶段出发,实证检验了以企业作为研发主体的研发联盟对企业全要素生产率的提升作用及其机制。研究结果表明,研发联盟对企业全要素生产率具有明显的提升作用,该作用主要通过促进信息流通、缓解资源错配、提升创新能力三重机制得以实现,企业提高自主创新意识也有助于强化该作用影响。异质性分析表明,仅有以共同研发作为契约机制的研发联盟对企业全要素生产率存在提升效应,且提升效应在国有企业、大型企业、不易被反向工程行业企业、东部地区、强知识产权保护地区以及中心城市更为显著。进一步研究发现,企业持续提升在研发联盟中实现的开放式创新广度和深度有助于规避联盟机会主义行为、提升联盟创新协同效应,从而对企业全要素生产率产生正向影响。本文研究不仅为研发联盟促进企业全要素生产率提升提供了新的理论框架,也为打造以企业作为研发主体的研发联盟与创新联合体、实现企业高质量发展提供了有益对策启示。

A research and development(R&D) alliance is a cooperative mode in which enterprises and other organizations or individuals cooperate in technology or product project R&D through contracts and other ways to achieve common R&D goals. Thus it is one of the effective ways for enterprises to achieve open innovation and is of great significance for improving the total factor productivity(TFP) of enterprises. Compared with urgent problems such as R&D failure caused by cultural differences in the industry-university-research cooperation, low partner matching, difficult-to-play synergies, and low industrialization efficiency of R&D achievements, R&D alliance with enterprises as the main body of R&D is more conducive to enterprises promoting open innovation under the leadership of independent innovation concepts to strengthen their innovation strength. This study attempts to separate enterprises from the diversified cooperation mechanism, explore the impact of R&D alliance with enterprises as the main body of R&D on the TFP of enterprises, clarify the influence mechanism of different stages of enterprises to achieve open innovation through R&D alliance, and provide a new understanding for enterprises to choose R&D mode based on their own innovation factor endowment and development goals.This study selects the R&D patent data of enterprises from 2010 to 2021 and matches the data of Ashare listed enterprises. Combined with the propensity score matching difference-in-differences method, this study empirically tests the effect of R&D alliance on enterprise TFP and its mechanism. The results reveal that R&D alliance has a significant effect on the TFP of enterprises, which is mainly achieved through the three mechanisms of promoting information flow, alleviating resource mismatch, and improving innovation capacity. The improvement of independent innovation awareness of enterprises can also strengthen the effect. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that only an R&D alliance with joint R&D as the contract mechanism has an improvement effect on the TFP of enterprises, and the improvement effect is more significant in state-owned enterprises, large enterprises, difficult to be reverse engineering industry enterprises, eastern regions, areas with strong intellectual property protection, and central cities. Further research finds that enterprises' continuous improvement of the breadth and depth of open innovation in R&D alliances can help avoid alliance opportunism and enhance alliance innovation synergy, which has a positive impact on the TFP of enterprises.In this study, enterprises are separated from the diversified cooperation mechanism, and the impact and mechanism of R&D alliance with enterprises as the main body of R&D on the TFP of enterprises are explored. This study provides a theoretical framework for opening the “black box” that an R&D alliance improves the TFP of enterprises and provides a dynamic basis for realizing the effect of maximizing the benefits of enterprises to adjust the degree of open innovation. Moreover, it explores the strengthening effect of enterprise-independent innovation awareness on the process of R&D alliance improving enterprise TFP and the inhibiting effect of potential competition between enterprises in the same industry on enterprise TFP, which is helpful for enterprises to pay attention to the cultivation of independent innovation awareness while promoting alliance cooperation.Due to technology spillover, opportunistic behavior, patent validity limitation, and other factors, the stability and sustainability of the alliance still face great challenges. To guarantee the benefits and efficiency of enterprises based on R&D alliance, this study puts forward the following countermeasures and suggestions. First, enterprises are encouraged to cooperate with other innovation entities in various ways such as cooperative R&D patents, breaking through the internal closed and single innovation paradigm, making full use of internal and external resources to promote open innovation, and improving technological innovation capability and innovation quality. Second, some measures should be taken to strengthen the dominant position of enterprises in innovation, cultivate their awareness of independent innovation, support enterprises to take the lead in establishing innovation consortiums with joint R&D as cooperation purposes and contract mechanisms, undertake major national scientific research tasks, and promote the rational flow of innovation resources among enterprises. Third, continue to improve the profit distribution and risk-bearing mechanisms of intellectual property rights, establish corporate intellectual property management and service organizations, strictly crack down on various acts of infringement of intellectual property rights according to law, and build a good external innovation environment for enterprise R&D alliances.