The Influence Of Social Ties In Standard Alliance On The Emergence Of Dominant Design

The dominant design is a design standard that extensively adopted,based on the competition of different technology standards during the process of industrial evolution and development.In western developed countries,enterprises often rely on their leading technology innovation ability and R&D advantages,actively promote the establishment of dominant design.At present,emerging economies are still located in the edge of global industrial division and have not yet mastered the key technologies and technical standards.Although there is a gap between China and developed countries in dominant design competition of many fields,the emerging of high-tech industry is still in the incubation and hatching stage,and the dominant design has not been unified.In this period,Chinese enterprises still have the opportunities to achieve independent technological leapfrogging and catching up.However,as an emerging economy,Chinese enterprises often experience uncertain economic and market environments,social ties act as a substitute for the traditional business practices of established institutions as a means to help firms to secure resources.Enterprises participate in standard alliances and collaborate with industry partners and governments can establish social ties,thus obtain relationship rents,and enhance the emergence of dominant design.Therefore,it is a critical issue for both governments and enterprises to understand how a focal firm's social ties will influence the establishment of dominant design.This study explains the influence mechanism of focal firms' social ties in standard alliance on the dominant design through literature and theory review.Using social network analysis,case analysis,this paper explains the construction of standard alliance and accumulation trend of the social ties;collecting vehicle standard data in transportation equipment manufacturing industry,combining with the patent data,environmental data and enterprise attributes,make an empirical study.The main contents include the following four aspects:(1)Two paths of the establishment of dominant design have been discussed,based on the case of WAPI and IGRS to explain the top-down and bottom-up path respectively;draw upon the social capital and social network theory,the elements of focal firms' social ties have been analysed,including business ties and political ties.The concept models of the direct effect,mediating effect and moderating effect between social ties in standard alliance and the emergence of dominant design have been explained.(2)Data used for the empirical analysis and its collection process have been explained,and the construction process of the standard alliance have also been explained.The standard alliance of FAW group as its focal firm has been constructed and the accumulation trend of social ties have been described by using standard data in automobile industry from 2001 to 2012;based on theoretical analysis to propose research hypotheses,combining patent data,environmental data and the enterprise attributes data,we use econometric model to do an empirical test,the results found that business ties and political ties all have positive impacts on the emergence of dominant design.(3)Draw upon technology leapfrog theory,“ambidextrous Innovation of focal firms” has been considered in the relationship between “social ties in standard alliance” to “the emergence of dominant design”,and the “black box” between “social ties in standard alliance” and “the emergence of dominant design” has been explained.The multiple mediating effects have been tested by using the structural equation mode.The results show that both exploratory innovation and exploitative innovation play the partial mediation roles between business ties in standard alliance and dominant design;between political ties in standard alliance and dominant design,the exploratory innovation plays the partial mediation role,while the mediation effect of exploitative innovation is not significant.(4)Introduce environmental factors and network position to construct a complete analysis framework,analyzing the contingent influence of social ties,using the enforcement of intellectual property rights and technological turbulence measure institutional and technical environment respectively,structural hole and reach efficiency measure network position;put forward the research hypotheses based on theoretical analysis,using the econometric model for empirical test,the study found that when the intellectual property rights enforcement is high,reach efficiency is high,business ties have positive influence on dominant design;when intellectual property rights enforcement is weak,technology turbulence degree is small,structural holes are poor,political ties have positive influence on dominant designThis study based on the emerging market situation,discusses the direct relationship between focal firms' social ties in standard alliance and the emergence of dominant design,the moderate roles of environment factor s and network position,and the medirating effect of ambidextrous Innovation.The conclusions expand the social capital,technology innovation and dominant design theory to a certain extent and have g significant guidance for practice.The quantitative measu rement about the dominant design has been realized,and business ties and political ties have been measured by objective data.We provide decision-making reference for the configuration of business ties and political ties,and the allocation of organizatio nal resources in exploratory innovation and exploitative innovation and provide policy suggestions for governments and enterprises on the emergence of dominant design.