中国企业海外研发组合结构与创新绩效研究

Research on the overseas R&D portfolio structure and innovation performance of Chinese enterprises

海外研发投资已经成为以中国为代表的新兴经济体后发跨国企业提升创新能力的重要战略选择。本文以中国2009-2014年八个行业的上市公司为研究样本,采用面板的负二项回归模型,从海外研发组合结构两个维度(广度和强度)检验对母公司创新绩效的影响关系,结果发现海外研发广度与母公司创新绩效之间存在倒U型曲线关系,海外研发强度与母公司创新绩效之间存在U型曲线关系。另外,还发现企业的吸收能力和海外投资经验在海外研发广度、强度与母公司创新绩效之间的起着积极的调节作用。该研究结果可以为以中国为代表的新兴经济体跨国企业海外研发投资决策提供一定的借鉴意义。

A large number of studies have regarded knowledge as an important component of enterprise innovation and competitive advantage.Enterprises with more diversified knowledge combinations will often obtain more innovative results,while overseas research and development investment is the key mechanism for multinational enterprises to acquire and utilize knowledge through their global footprints.With the increasing complexity of global technology and the existence of specific expertise in specific countries or regions,the Chinese government,in order to realize the'innovation-driven'development strategy,encourages enterprises to'go out'and use the internationalization of their research and development activities as a'springboard',to acquire advanced knowledge and high technologies from all over the world,to make up for their disadvantage,and to realize the goal of changing from the position of latecomers to the position of fast followers or even leaders.The research on the relationship between overseas R&D investment and enterprise innovation performance in the existing literature finds that although there is a certain relationship between them,the direction and strength of this relationship are still unclear.This paper constructs two concepts of the breadth and intensity of overseas R&D combined network structure.The breadth of overseas R&D refers to the fact that multinational enterprises invest in R&D in different countries in order to obtain different sources of knowledge,which is manifested by geographical dispersion.The wider the coverage of floor,the more various kinds of knowledge can be searched,identified and absorbed accordingly.Adding new and different elements to the knowledge set of enterprises is conducive to promoting the innovation performance of enterprises.However,excessively dispersed overseas R&D will generate a large amount of management costs such as communication and coordination within enterprise groups,resulting in the decline of enterprise innovation performance.Overseas R&D intensity refers to the proportion of overseas R&D investment in all transnational investments.Due to the characteristics of tacit knowledge and the disadvantages of foreigners in overseas R&D investment,the initial low-intensity overseas R&D investment cannot effectively improve the innovation performance of the parent company.With the increase of overseas R&D intensity,multinational enterprises can obtain more tacit knowledge needed for innovation from the host country,realize R&D scale effect and necessary threshold effect,and obtain innovation performance greater than the high cost brought by the disadvantages of foreigners,thus obtaining higher innovation performance.Therefore,this paper puts forward the possible non-linear relationship between the breadth and intensity of overseas research and development and the innovation performance of the parent company,and discusses the moderating effect of enterprise absorptive capacity and overseas investment experience on the breadth and intensity of overseas research and development and the innovation performance of the parent company.This paper takes eight listed companies in China’s industries with frequent overseas research and development activities from 2009 to 2014 as research samples,and constructs a negative binomial regression model of the panel.The empirical results show that there is an inverse U-shaped curve relationship between the breadth of overseas R&D and the innovation performance of the parent company.When the overseas R&D investment of the enterprise is in an appropriate breadth(to the left of the inverse U-shaped inflection point),the innovation performance brought by the acquisition of advanced knowledge and technology from overseas R&D exceeds the cost of all kinds of investment of the enterprise,which has a positive effect on the innovation performance of the parent company.However,when the overseas R&D investment is too scattered(to the right of the inflection point),the costs brought by management and communication,etc.exceed the gains,and the innovation performance of the parent company will be negatively affected instead.There is a U-curve relationship between overseas R&D investment intensity and parent company’s innovation performance.When an enterprise starts to increase its research and development investment overseas,the input cost is greater than the income,which cannot effectively improve the innovation performance of the parent company(the left side of the U-shaped inflection point).After reaching a certain intensity(the right side of the inflection point),the gain gradually exceeds the cost,which can significantly promote the innovation performance of the parent company.In addition,we also tested the moderating effect of the parent company’s absorptive capacity and overseas investment experience on the relationship between the breadth and intensity of overseas research and development and the parent company’s innovation performance.The results show that for enterprises with strong absorptive capacity and rich experience in overseas investment,the inflection point of the inverted U-shaped curve between overseas R&D breadth and parent company’s innovation performance shifts to the right,and the inflection point of the U-shaped curve between overseas R&D intensity and parent company’s innovation performance shifts to the left,indicating that both parent company’s absorptive capacity and overseas investment experience can actively adjust the relationship between overseas R&D breadth and intensity and parent company’s innovation performance.The research conclusion of this paper provides some practical significance for multinational enterprises in emerging economies to carry out overseas research and development investment.When an enterprise starts overseas R&D investment activities,it should first invest in a certain extent(less than the inflection point value),but it should not be too scattered(exceeding the inflection point value).When the extent approaches the inflection point value,it can then consider increasing the intensity of overseas R&D investment.When the intensity exceeds the inflection point value,it can significantly improve the innovation performance of the parent company.With the enhancement of the enterprise’s absorptive capacity and the accumulation of overseas investment experience,the scope and intensity of overseas research and development investment can be further expanded,so that the parent company can better enhance its innovation performance through overseas research and development investment.This paper makes contributions to international business and research and development internationalization strategy theory in the following aspects.First of all,in the context of emerging economies,China’s multinational enterprises are taken as the research object,which is different from the previous research on multinational enterprises in developed countries and enriches the corresponding theoretical research.Secondly,previous studies have focused more on whether overseas R&D activities of multinational enterprises affect the innovation performance of parent companies,and seldom revealed the relationship between the structural attributes(breadth and intensity)of overseas R&D portfolio and the innovation performance of parent companies.This paper analyzes the non-linear relationship between the breadth and intensity of overseas R&D portfolio and the innovation performance of parent companies by using knowledgeview,resource view,organizational economics transaction cost and institutional theory.Thirdly,we discussed the moderating effect of enterprise absorptive capacity and overseas investment experience on the breadth and intensity of overseas research and development and the innovation performance of parent companies.