Research On R&D Incentives Of High-tech Enterprises Under Horizontal And Vertical Competitive Pressures

High-tech enterprises have become the main body of innovation and endogenous power.As the basis of technological innovation,research and development(R&D)activities not only support and strengthen the competitiveness of enterprises themselves,but also the important innovation driving force of regional development,industrial upgrading and national progress.It should be pointed out that the R&D activities of enterprises are closely related to their environment,especially affected by the competitive environment.Since 1948,"competition and R&D" has always been one of the hot issues in the academic community,and a large number of literatures have studied the impact of market competition on enterprise R&D.In the past ten years,the market environment for enterprises has undergone significant changes-enterprises not only face the horizontal competition pressure from their counterparts,but also face vertical extrusion from large customers.For example,in the U.S.pharmaceutical industry,three major players,Cardinal Health Inc.,McKesson Corp.,and AmerisourceBergen Corp,that control 75% of the nation's drug distribution,as a result,they are plenty large enough to handle negotiations with drug suppliers.Different from the horizontal competition among the peers,the vertical relationship between the enterprise and the large customer is essentially a kind of coopetition relationship,that is,the relationship between the enterprise and the customer is the relationship of cooperation and competition,and there is a common phenomenon of face-to-face cooperation and back-to-back competition in the industry.Therefore,as far as China's high-tech enterprises are concerned,will different types of competitive pressures affect the R&D decisions of enterprises? How? Is there a difference? In particular,when facing two kinds of competitive pressure at the same time,how should enterprises weigh the pros and cons and conduct corresponding R&D activities? The solution of these problems not only cuts the weakness of the existing research,but also has an important inspiration for the operation and R&D management practice of the high-tech enterprises in China.Therefore,this paper focuses on the impact of two types of competitive pressure on enterprise R&D investment incentive,in order to make corresponding research and supplement on innovation strategic management theory,and provide management inspiration for the enterprise practice.This study is based on related theories of innovative strategic management theory,game theory,and optimal equilibrium decision-making.First,we use game theory to build four competitive game models among manufacturers(R&D enterprises),alternative manufacturers(peer competitors)and leading retailers(large customers)in the supply chain: Model N(the R&D optimal decision model under monopoly conditions,the benchmark model),Model H(only manufacturer and alternative manufacturer,single horizontal competition model),Model V(only manufacturer and leading retailer,single vertical competition model),Model C(manufacturers,substitutes manufacturers and leading retailers coexist,two competition co-exist model).All models above are applied to explore the optimization of R&D investment decisions of R&D enterprises under different competitive situations.Through the deduction and comparative analysis of models,this paper propose five propositions and extract three main propositional inference from them.Then based on the propositional inferences,this paper further tests the related hypotheses by using empirical research methods.Using the mixed panel data of the biomedical industry for 10 years from 2006 to 2015 and the information technology industry for 6 years from 2010 to 2015 in China,this paper empirically tests the relationship of the horizontal and vertical competitive pressuress on the R&D investment of high-tech enterprises by individual fixed effect model and random effect respectively,then compares the two industries' regression results.The empirical results further provide empirical data support for the model's propositional inference.Finally,this paper obtains the following three research conclusions:Conclusion 1: The horizontal competition pressure from the industry has a positive effect on R&D incentives of high-tech enterprises,and the greater the horizontal competitive pressure,the stronger the promotion of enterprise innovation,and the greater the R&D investment strength of the firm.Conclusion 2: The vertical competitive pressure from large customers has a negative effect on R&D incentives of high-tech enterprises,and the greater the vertical competitive pressure,the stronger the inhibition of enterprise innovation,and the smaller the R&D investment strength of the firm.Conclusion 3: Horizontal and vertical double competitive pressure has a negative effect on R&D incentives of high-tech enterprises,that is,the inhibitory effect of vertical competitive pressure on enterprise innovation is dominant when both exist.