Multinational Companies In China Resources Configured For Breakthrough Innovation Performance Mechanism

Multinational Companies (MNCs)' technology innovation mechanism is an important issue both in theoretical and practical levels. However, many existing studies tend to examine this topic from a macro perspective of its spillovers and crowding-out effects (e.g. to explore their relationships with industrial upgrading and regional economic growth, etc.), are ignored to study the micro-path of the technology innovation mechanisms. As one of the most important types of technology innovation, recently, the radical innovation attracts a growing attention both from academic and industrial scholars; A very important reason for this phenomenon is the positive significance of radical innovation to the national innovation system and firm's sustainable competitive advantage. Nevertheless, much of existing researches are still have some important gaps, lots of literatures on radical innovation still tend to examine this field form a conceptual level and are therefore less involved to explore the success of radical innovation form a front-end driven factors and process perspectives.Focus on the existing limitations, this study attempts to examine this topic form the front-end driven mechanism for the MNCs' radical innovation in China, to study on the relationships between resource allocation to the radical innovation' performance. Specifically, we try to extract what types of resource and resource allocations are the key drivers to maximize the performance of the radical innovation, also, we need understand how to build these critical resources and resource allocation models. Form the macro level, our study could help government to better examine the policy decision-making for "national innovation system" and "the upgrading of capability of independent innovation".In addition, Managers of MNCs in China seeking to gain competitive advantage through radical innovation will benefit from knowing which critical resource and resource allocation are the drivers of radical innovation, as this knowledge will help them identify how best to invest their scarce resources to support the most critical competencies and how to build these modes of resource allocation.Furthermore, Local companies can also benefit form our studies if they could understand the MNCs' radical innovation mechanism in China form a more detailed micro-perspectives. Hence, they could make use of demonstration and imitation effects to further enhance themselves radical innovation' output.Financed form the key research grant form the Ministry of Education, We have contracted with a professional marketing consulting company to help us conduct this survey project to release the questionnaires, also to help us make the appointment to interview with the top management teams of the 8 MNCs in China. The main conclusions of our studies are as follows:Firstly, based on the theoretical analysis, Top Management Team interviews and field study, we have successfully identified the three critical resources and capabilities of the MNCs' radical innovation in China, which are marketing resource, technology resource and absorptive capacity; In addition, the two key modes of resource allocation are being explored, too. Those modes are technology alliance and knowledge transfer. We also did a systematic analysis for their innovation path and process for resource allocation.Secondly, on the basis of a database which comprise 397 multinational R&D institutions in China, our study makes an overview for their radical innovation and technology R&D, such as the geographical and industrial distribution, the company' parent country, and the strategic evolution of these R&D institutions in China. Besides, on account of the theory analysis and case studies for 8 MNCs in China, we did comprehensive analysis for their radical innovation' types, characteristics, and the process of its technology evolution trajectory.Thirdly, based on the literature review and case studies, this paper construct a theoretical framework relating the resource allocation to the radical innovation performances, explored the logical relationships between driven resources & capabilities, the modes of resource allocation, and the radical innovation performances. What is more, some 13 related hypotheses are raised.Fourthly, on the strength of the 165 valid questionnaires which answered by the 165 MNCs' TMT in China, we are using statistic regression techniques such as factor analysis, structural equation model, and path analysis to test these 13 hypotheses. We find evidence that, overall, marketing resource, absorptive capacity, and knowledge transfer are significantly and positively related to radical product innovation and process innovation performances respectively; while technology resource and technology alliances are influence the radical product and process innovation output simultaneously; Moreover, we find that MNCs' process innovation also has a positive impact on product innovation performance in China.This study contains 8 chapters. Chapter one makes a review about this research's logic clues and key issues, and introduces the study contents and research methodologies et al. Chapter two is the part of literature review and showed the theoretical contexts and foundations of the study. Chapter 3 is the part of radical innovation theory and model development. We firstly make an overview for radical innovation' concept, connotation, and its significance; Secondly, we examined radical innovation' types and features; finally, we analyzed radical innovation' process, the management challenges as well as the corresponding solutions. Chapter four explored the two critical modes of resource allocation to radical innovation, we also using a case study of Siemens' TD-SCDMA to investigate their technology alliances and knowledge transfer during the process of its radical innovation practice. In the Chapter five, we discussed the detailed relationships between MNCs' resource allocations to the radical innovation performance in China;Also, we developed a theoretical roadmap and raised related 13 hypotheses to explain these relationships. Chapter six and seven are the research design and empirical results of our studies. We explained how to construct survey questionnaires, how to select research samples, and data collection procedures. In these two chapters, we reported descriptive statistics, the outcome of factor analysis, scale reliability and validity, as well as the results of path analysis.Finally, we explained the results of hypothesis testing. Chapter eight summarizes previous study conclusions and explores the study's contributions in theoretical and practical levels. Finally, we conclude with a discussion of the limitations of this study, and directions for future research.