Chinese Equipment Manufacturing Research Articles

The development of the sustainable innovation capabilities construct using grounded theory: evidence from Chinese equipment manufacturers

PurposeInfluenced by factors such as fluctuations in market supply and demand and the rapid development of new technologies, manufacturing companies are facing greater challenges to transform and upgrade. The existing relevant studies about sustainable innovation capabilities mostly focus on classification of innovation or from a static resource-based view and less on quantitative measurement from a dynamic perspective and inter-organizational relationships. This paper takes a dynamic capabilities and social capital theory, explore the concept and dimensions of sustainable innovation capabilities and then makes development of a new scale.Design/methodology/approachThis paper uses a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methodologies to develop a measure of sustainable innovation capabilities in two studies. Grounded theory methodology is used to explore the concept definition and dimensions of sustainable innovation capabilities. Exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis are conducted to refine and validate the factor structure, and then the authors developed the sustainable innovation capabilities scale.FindingsThe results show that sustainable innovation capabilities composed of ideation capabilities, opportunity capture capabilities, agile learning, creative inheritance and networking capabilities. The sustainable innovation capabilities that firms should possess are reflected at the firm level and inter-organizational relationship level, and the culture-specific dimension of creative inheritance reflects the influence of national and organizational culture.Originality/valueThe research reveals the internal driving force of the manufacturer's sustainable innovation capabilities, as well as the role and uniqueness embodied in the specific culture, providing a new perspective for improving the manufacturer's sustainable innovation capabilities.

Value Chain and Technology-Based Complexity Analysis of China’s Manufacturing Exports

In recent years, China’s manufacturing industry has developed rapidly, but numerous studies have shown that China is not a manufacturing powerhouse. In recent years, the division of labor in global value chains has been booming, and the Chinese manufacturing industry has been actively integrated into it with its labor cost advantage and achieved rapid development. There is an urgent need to transform and upgrade to high value-added links in the value chain. This paper measures the upstream degree of China’s manufacturing industry through the world input-output table and uses it as an indicator to measure the global value chain status, focusing on the heterogeneous impact of different types of productive services on the upgrading of China’s manufacturing industry’s global value chain status. This study examines the impact of global value chain boundary lessness and institutional quality on the technological complexity of China’s equipment manufacturing exports, using panel data of six types of Chinese equipment manufacturing industries from 2007 to 2018 as a sample. The findings show that intermediate manufactured goods from intermediate imports and intermediate products from developing economies make the strongest contribution to imported intermediate manufactured goods from developing economies. By industry, the impact areas of Graph Visualization (GV) embedding and institutional quality are different. GV embedding has a stronger contribution to the manufacturing of communication, computer, and other electronic equipment, while institutional quality has a stronger contribution to the manufacturing of special office machinery, and the interaction between the two is the same as that of institutional quality.

Determinants of overcapacity in China’s renewable energy industry: Evidence from wind, photovoltaic, and biomass energy enterprises

This study uses data on 116 listed Chinese equipment manufacturing or material production enterprises in the non-hydropower renewable energy industries (i.e., wind, photovoltaic (PV), and biomass energy) to explore the determinants of overcapacity in the renewable energy industry. A data envelopment analysis model is applied to measure the overcapacity of these enterprises. Relevant data from 2008 to 2016 are regressed using a panel Tobit model with a bootstrap method and accordingly, the mechanism of overcapacity formation is identified from the perspectives of enterprises' profitability level, government subsidy, and the domestic and foreign market structures. The results show that overcapacity differs among China's non-hydropower renewable energy industries—it is the most serious in the PV industry, followed by the wind and biomass industries. Enterprise profitability, government subsidy, and market structure all significantly impact the overcapacity of the PV industry. Further, the increase in the number of policies will aggravate the overcapacity of the PV industry, but an increase in coordination degree of renewable energy industrial policies and financial support could mitigate it. Excessive government subsidy and the unbalanced market structure at home and abroad are the main reasons for the overcapacity in the wind and biomass industries, respectively. To reduce overcapacity, subsidy standards and thresholds for entering and exiting industries should be rigidly controlled by the government. In addition, PV enterprises should focus on improving enterprises' return on assets and pay more attention to domestic market demand, while biomass enterprises should actively explore overseas markets. Finally, more attention should be paid to the policies' synergy of the photovoltaic industry and its related industrial rather than the number of policies.

Grey game research about customer preference, international competition and the choice of industrial type

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyze the market share of two competing enterprises from the perspective of consumer preferences on both of their products. For different industrial types, this paper discusses how domestic firms make decisions to compete with the multinational company based on consumer’s preferences on different types of products from different companies.Design/methodology/approachConsidering the different types of equipment manufacturing industries, consumers’ differentiated preferences for Chinese domestic equipment manufacturers and multinational equipment manufacturers, as well as the uncertainty of technological level and dependence on production factor in reality, this paper introduces the interval grey number into the Stackelberg game model and analyzes the market share of two competing enterprises and the consumer preferences for both of their products based on different industrial types.FindingsThe results show that when both of the two competing firms are engaged in R&D activities, consumers prefer domestic products, and with the improvement of technological level, this preference grows stronger, but the market share of the multinational enterprise is higher than that of the local enterprises. When the two competing enterprises are engaged in manufacturing activities, consumers are more inclined to choose products of the multinational company, and with the increasing dependence on production factors, the preference becomes stronger. Meanwhile, the market share of the multinational company is higher than the local enterprise. Therefore, from the perspective of consumer preference, China’s domestic equipment manufacturing enterprises should choose technology-intensive or technology and labor-intensive industries (or dual-intensive industries).Originality/valueIn the context of international competition, from the perspective of consumer preference, the research on industrial selection is relatively rare, and does not take into account the influence of the uncertain influence brought by technological-level and production factor dependency. Therefore, this paper analyzes the influence of technological-level and production factor dependency on consumer preference among various types of industries. Based on the concept of consumer preference, and combining with the interval grey number, the improved grey game model is constructed to analyze the influence of the uncertainty of enterprise’s technological-level and production factor dependency on the market share of two competing companies, finally coming up with the direction into which the Chinese equipment manufacturing industries should develop.

Gamification's impact on manufacturing: Enhancing job motivation, satisfaction and operational performance with smartphone‐based gamified job design

AbstractGamification is defined as applying game design elements to non‐game contexts. The integration of gamification into the workplace adds a stimulating and captivating game‐like layer to the working experience of employees. This is predicted to improve their positive affect at work and operational performance to a certain extent. With the ubiquity of smartphones and Internet technology, smartphone‐based interactive operations can better facilitate the implementation of gamification in work processes. Against a backdrop of a drastic transformation facing the Chinese equipment manufacturing industry, we gamified a number of computer numerical control machine operational jobs. A gamified job design framework was proposed, based on the job characteristics model and the game elements hierarchy. To achieve gamification in this context, a smartphone application was designed. We then hypothesized that smartphone‐based gamified job design (SGJD) would enhance participants’ three key indicators, namely, (i) job motivation, (ii) job satisfaction, and (iii) operational performance. We also analyzed how participants’ willingness to embrace gamified job design, known as “consent,” affected the improvement in the three key indicators. The results illustrated that SGJD significantly increased participants’ job motivation, job satisfaction, and operational performance. Furthermore, our experiment showed that consent to SGJD was positively correlated to the improvement in job motivation. However, no significant correlation was observed between consent to SGJD and an improvement in job satisfaction or operational performance.

Impacts of the WTO accession on Chinese exports

Using firm-level panel data of the Chinese electrical machinery and communication equipment manufacturers, this paper reveals that, after the entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO, henceforth), the export of Chinese firms was accelerated by a rise of productivity, but was not uniform among ownership structures. Classifying the firms into private domestic firms, state-owned enterprises, and foreign-invested enterprises, our empirical estimation concludes that the entry into the WTO had a ‘productivity effect’ on Chinese exports, and an asymmetric ‘ownership effect,’ which was less favorable to the exports for state-owned enterprises.

Research on the Budgetary Slack Behavior to the Construction Machinery and Equipment Manufacturing Enterprise in China

In Chinese construction machinery and equipment manufacturing enterprises, the behavior of budgetary slack is an intractable problem in comprehensive budget management so far. In this paper, the causes of budgetary slack behavior, from points of agency theory, contingency theory, behavioral theory, psychology theory, information asymmetry theory and motivation theory, and from the lack of relativity between the theory and practice of management accounting, are analyzed systematically. Some management countermeasures are advanced to prevent budgetary slack. As the research consequence, the compromised point is the appropriate budgetary slack is not harmful to corporate performance.

Study on Numerical Control System of Lampcover Spinning Machine

Chinese spinning technology has developed for more than 40 years. Especially in recent years, various kinds of spinning equipment have been developed and contributed a lot to Chinese equipment manufacturing industry, but it is blank in the light industry and civil industry. Due to the high cost and programming complexity of NC machine tools, we have no dedicated spinning machine and mostly rely on simple manual in the lampcover production. As to the above problems, we developed the lampcover NC spinning machines that can generate the track automatically and complete automatic control in the machining process.

How China's equipment manufacturing firms achieve successful independent innovation

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate two issues: understanding how Chinese equipment manufacturing firms can achieve successful independent innovation; and studying the roles of technology management (TM) and technological capability (TC) in independent innovation. The paper will develop a new model for independent innovation for China's equipment manufacturing firms.Design/methodology/approachThe paper reviews literature related to independent innovation models, then develops a theoretical framework combining and integrating research from different fields. First, it examines how indexes of independent innovation are defined from the perspectives of technology, patents, standard, R&D and the market. Second, technology management and technological capability are interpreted. Third, relationships among TM, TC, and independent innovation are theoretically analyzed and discussed. Based on these, the paper conducts an in‐depth case study of Harbin Electric Corporation to explain how independent innovation is achieved from perspectives of TM and TC. Finally, the paper constructs and discusses the double helix model of TC and TM for independent innovation.FindingsThe paper finds that: technology management and technological capability both exert important influences on successful independent innovation; the improvement of TC follows cyclical steps of acquisition, assimilation and improvement, and TM is promoted by reforming and updating strategy management, organization management, regulation management and resource‐quality management; TM and TC have interactive effects; and TM and TC are coupled in the form of a double helix to realize independent innovation.Originality/valueThe paper provides new aspects of technology management, technological capability and their interaction to deconstruct independent innovation. The paper also offers insights in presenting a detailed case study of on‐the‐ground innovation and upgrading in China.

Supply chain integration and service oriented transformation: Evidence from Chinese equipment manufacturers

This study builds a conceptual model to describe the relationships among operational integration and strategic integration of supply chain, product-based and customer action-based service provided by industrial manufacturers, and firm performance. Using sample data from Chinese equipment manufacturers, this study finds that operational integration of supply chain has positive direct effect on product-based service, while strategic integration has positive direct effect on customer action-based service. Furthermore, product-based service is the basic transformation strategy for industrial manufacturing companies and it has not only positive direct effect but also indirect effect through customer action-based service on firm performance.

A component-based equipment logistics information management system

The purpose of this paper is to present a Component-Based Equipment Logistics Information Management System (CBELIMS) to supply the cooperative work-platform and enhance the efficiency of equipment's service. The optimised integrated-cooperative equipment logistics management work-flow is presented. Four models are founded to support CBELIMS and the component development method of the system is adopted to endow CBELIMS with reconfigurable capacity. Thirty three components are developed according to the construct of component system framework and are assembled into CBELIMS. CBELIMS have been applied to three Chinese equipment manufacturing companies, which show that it can meet the requirement of the equipment logistics.

The Evolutionary Process of Secondary Innovation in the Context of Globalization

This paper examines the evolutionary process of secondary innovation in a typical Chinese equipment manufacturing firm in the context of globalization and elaborates how to achieve latecomer's advantage from imitation to innovation. Four stages are identified in the process of international manufacturing: the equipment import stage, the production cooperation stage, the R&D cooperation stage and the global operation stage. Technological innovation evolves as follows: from duplicative imitation to creative imitation, and then from exploitative innovation to explorative innovation. Through the evolutionary process, a firm can take advantage of globalization to accumulate knowledge and improve its capabilities, which enable it to upgrade in the global manufacturing network.