Research On Technology Search,Absorptive Capacity And Innovation Quality Of High-tech Firms

Economic globalization is now an irreversible trend on the overall economic development around the world.In post-pandemic era,it is evident that the turbulence and uncertainty in the world economy are increasing greater,the economic globalization has suffered an unprecedented damage.As the trade frictions among great powers continue to escalate,Chinese firms,especially high-tech firms,are faced with a series of “neck-jamming” problems that are attributed to lack of core technologies,moreover,the fundamental reason is that high-tech firms have insufficient innovation capabilities and low innovation quality.At present,most of high-tech firms in China are at the bottom of the value chain,and they have low innovation quality limited by short of core technology,indicating the economic benefits are far from being ideal.Therefore,it is crucial to improve the high-tech firms' innovation quality,which is of great theoretical and practical significance to enhance their core competitiveness,to break through “neck-jamming” problems considering the core technology,to create a new engine for economic development as well as to cultivate a new driving force of economy.In particular,most of firms in China have paid great attention to collect,integrate and utilize the heterogeneous knowledge within and outside the firm,which they perceive as a major way to carry out technological innovation in order to gain sustainable competitive advantages.Although a growing number of studies have addressed the technology search in the field of innovation management,most studies have focused on the role of external search or the absorptive capacity on firms' innovation performance and their innovation capability.There is still a lack of research that combines the technology search,the absorptive capacity and innovation quality together and explores their relationships.What's more,either focus on the search breadth and search depth,or on the search duality,the existing studies simply concerned with the impact of search behavior on firms' innovation performance and innovation capabilities,yet they have not discussed what kind of technology search strategies high-tech firms should choose to allocate their resources,achieving the ideal innovation quality in the context of limited organizational resources.Taken together,this study integrates the existing ideas of related research,and apply the search theory,absorptive capacity theory,and innovation management theory,moreover,from the perspective of technology search and absorptive capacity,this study sets out to take Chinese high-tech firms as the research object,center on the basic topic of “how technology search and absorptive capacity affects the innovation quality of high-tech firms”.Further,a theoretical model of “technical search,absorptive capacity,innovation quality of high-tech firms” is constructed,attempting to explore and verify the following three issues:(1)what is the relationship between different technology search strategies of high-tech firms and their innovation quality?(2)What kind of role does absorptive capacity play in the influence mechanism or action pattern of technology search on the innovation quality of high-tech firms?(3)Configuration effect analysis on the ways of improving the innovation quality of high-tech firms.In the process of research,this study adopts theoretical deduction,statistical regression analysis of empirical research,and case-oriented qualitative comparative analysis to specify the research issues.First,the literature review is well organized,which include the related research on technology search,absorptive capacity and innovation quality.A theoretical model is constructed to examine the relationship between technology search and absorptive capacity with innovation quality of high-tech firms;accordingly,the relevant research hypotheses are deduced based on the existing research theories.Second,taking the high-tech firms from China A-share listed companies as research sample,this study uses the panel data model to conduct empirically test,verifying the hypothesis concerning the relationship between technology search and absorptive capacity with innovation quality of high-tech firms.In addition,building on the above studies,this study involved three typical high-tech firms,which respectively located in eastern,central and western China,to conduct case studies by applying the qualitative comparative analysis.Based on the conditional factors in a particular configuration,such as the external technology search,the internal absorptive capacity,etc.,the improving ways of innovation quality of high-tech firms under different factor combination are discussed.Through empirical research and case study,the following research findings are obtained:(1)There is an inverted U-shaped relationship between the breadth and depth of technology search and innovation quality of high-tech firms,in particular,balanced search has a positive impact on the latter.To begin with,the relationship between the breadth and depth of technology search and the innovation quality of high-tech firms is proved not to be a simple linear tendency,yet the relationship is an inverted U-shaped form that first rises and then falls.In other words,the breadth and depth of technological search for high-tech firms each have their own optimal points.It is conducive to improving the innovation quality when appropriately increasing the breadth and depth of technological search,further,once the threshold is exceeded,the increase in the breadth and depth of technological search will exert a negative impact on the innovation quality of high-tech firms.Second,in light of the technology search,there is a right balance between its breadth and depth,which can provide new technology knowledge and opportunities as well as effectively avoid the innovation risk resulted from excessive search in a certain dimension,promoting a higher quality of innovation for high-tech firms.Although there are great distinctions considering the search methods and objectives,it is apparent the complementary effect between the search breadth and depth plays a positive role in the level and quality of high-tech firms' innovation.(2)Technology search acts on the innovation quality of high-tech firms by affecting the absorptive capacity.Technology search breadth,technology search depth,and balanced search all have a positive effect on the potential absorptive capacity of high-tech firms;Technology search breadth and balanced search have significantly positive effect on the realized absorptive capacity of high-tech firms,while the positive effect of technology search depth on the latter is not significant;Both potential absorptive capacity and realized absorptive capacity have a positive effect on the innovation quality of high-tech firms;In addition to the fact that the mediating role of realized absorptive on the relationship between the technology search depth and the innovation quality of high-tech firms is not supported,potential absorptive capacity and realized absorptive capacity have multiple mediating effects on the relationships between technology search breadth,balanced technology search and innovation quality of high-tech firms.(3)Configuration effect analysis of the improving path of innovation quality in high-tech firms.The fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis(fs QCA)is applied to analyze the configuration combination of antecedent factors,and the research results show that there are three paths with six schemes effective to improve the innovation quality of high-tech firms.The first path,which refers to the path improve the innovation quality of high-tech firms in the context of technology search breadth,includes two configuration schemes.They are suitable for high-tech firms with diversified main businesses.The second path,which refers to the path improve the innovation quality of high-tech firms in the context of technology search depth,includes two configuration schemes.They are suitable for either new high-tech firms or high-tech firms with single main business.The third path,which refers to the path improve the innovation quality of high-tech firms in the context of balanced technology search,includes two configuration schemes.They are suitable for large high-tech firms which are relatively mature and have diversified main businesses.This study is centered on the topic of improving innovation quality in high-tech firms,which is perceived as an exploratory and innovative task in the field of innovation management and quality management.On the one hand,the research results provide a meaningful reference and suggestion for Chinese high-tech firms to better improve the innovation quality.On the other hand,it is also provide sound theoretical basis and practical examples for government administrations to offer support for the construction of high-tech firms,meanwhile,it contributes to facilitate innovation-driven development strategies.This study provides a solid guarantee for realizing China's strategic goal of being an innovative country.In general,the theoretical contributions of this study are summarized as follows:(1)This study further defines and analyzes the concept and connotation of innovation quality,explores the relationship among innovation quality,innovation quantity and innovation performance,provides better understanding of research on the theoretical system of innovation quality.It offers a certain theoretical basis to precisely study innovation quality.(2)In this study,technology search,absorptive capacity and innovation quality of high-tech firms are incorporated into a same theoretical frame.Further,a theoretical model that describes the relationship among technology search,absorptive capacity and innovation quality of high-tech firms is established,which enables to explore the mechanism and action path of technology search and absorptive capacity on the innovation quality of high-tech firms,and the multiple mediation effects of absorptive.It adds to a growing body of research on the outcome variables of technology search and absorptive capabilities,which not only provides theoretical basis to improve innovation quality of high-tech firms,but also offers a fresh direction and perspective for future research into the relationship between knowledge management and innovation quality in high-tech firms.(3)This study has comprehensively applied statistical regression analysis method and case-oriented qualitative comparative analysis(QCA)method.Based on the view of configuration,it owns a certain degree of innovation to explore the improving path of innovation quality in high-tech firms,which contributes to existing knowledge and lays the groundwork for future research into improving innovation quality.What's more,this study provides valuable ideas for further research on the topic of innovation quality improvement,and also makes a beneficial exploration on the transformation from“innovation quantity” to focus on “innovation quality” of high-tech firms in China.