Abstract
Many domestic enterprises in emerging economies are concerned with the question of how to better utilize the portfolio of technology sourcing channels to achieve rapid economic growth by technological innovation. This paper looks at this issue by exploring the impacts of knowledge acquisition diversity (KAD) on innovation performance of domestic enterprises in China and the technological contexts (in terms of technology gap and technology development speed) under which KAD is most likely to contribute. Using panel data of the manufacturing industry in China over the 2001–2009 period, the results show that KAD has an inverse U-shaped relationship with innovation performance in terms of both product-related innovation performance (NPS) and knowledge-related innovation performance (PAT). Specifically, it reveals that the capability to generate technological innovation over time is dependent on how domestic enterprises manage their portfolio of knowledge sourcing channels to learn from foreign enterprises. Moreover, it is shown that the technology gap significantly moderates the inverted U-shaped relationship between KAD and both NPS and PAT. Technology development speed has a moderating effect on the inverted U-shaped relationship between KAD and innovation only in terms of NPS. The results of this study can help us to understand the relationships among technological contexts, KAD and innovation performance of domestic enterprises in emerging countries.
Highlights
Ever since joined World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, the Chinese government has nurtured an “indigenous innovation” policy designed to promote the sustainable competitiveness of Chinese domestic enterprises
In order to gain detailed insights of the moderating effects, we plot the relationships between knowledge acquisition diversity (KAD) and two kind of innovation performance measures in Figure 2a,b to show how technology gap moderate these relationships
The relationship between external knowledge acquisition and innovation performance of domestic enterprises in emerging countries have been attracting a lot of attentions from researchers in the last decades [4,7,60]
Summary
Ever since joined World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, the Chinese government has nurtured an “indigenous innovation” policy designed to promote the sustainable competitiveness of Chinese domestic enterprises. Chinese domestic enterprises even “leapfrog” foreign enterprises in some fields and become major competitors in several industries such as 5G telecom, high-speed rail, solar photovoltaic, and home appliances. These industries have gained market leadership through competing in excellent manufacturing capabilities, and in innovation as well. For academic scholars and government officials in less developed economies, how to enhance the innovativeness of domestic enterprises and achieve sustainable economic development has been one of hot issues for decades. The importance of acquiring external knowledge through different channels has widely been recognized, including purchases or transfer of technology from foreign as well as domestic agencies, spillover from foreign direct investment (FDI) or R&D activities of other enterprises [6,7,8,9,10]
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