| The sci-tech revolution,industrial transformation,and environmental turbulence drive firms to adopt breakthrough innovation to maintain business competitiveness.Breakthrough innovation can not only leapfrog existing technology trajectories,but reshape the market landscape.However,facing deep knowledge specialization and fragmentation,and business environment dynamics,firms often construct innovation ecosystems with external actors to obtain cross-border knowledge and realize the crossintegration of technical knowledge and new knowledge creation.The knowledge flows and co-creation relationships between the focal firms and other actors in innovation ecosystems can form different ways of knowledge co-creation,which can influence the knowledge interactions among actors and firms’ breakthrough innovation.Existing studies have paid attention to the knowledge flows and interactions in innovation ecosystems,but not still clearly proposed the dimensions of knowledge co-creation in the innovation ecosystem and their connotations.Similarly,the internal mechanism and contingent factors of knowledge co-creation in the innovation ecosystem acting on breakthrough innovation are scarcely analyzed,and the conclusions are discrepant.Therefore,integrating existing views,based on open innovation theory,dynamic capability theory,resource dependence theory and the actor difference perspective,this dissertation focuses on the focal firm,and closely care about the basic issue of “how knowledge co-creation in the innovation ecosystem affect breakthrough innovation of the focal firm”,then the research path of “knowledge co-creation→capability reconfiguration→breakthrough innovation of the focal firm” is shaped under the research and practical context of the innovation ecosystem.The following three questions can explicate this research: 1.In the innovation ecosystem built by the focal firm,what is the relationship between knowledge co-creation and breakthrough innovation of the focal firm? 1.What are the paths which knowledge co-creation in the innovation ecosystem acts on breakthrough innovation of the focal firm? 3.What effects will the different interorganizational dependences have on the above path?To answer these questions,this dissertation combines case study with empirical research jointly to explain and analyze.Specifically,after systematically recalling existing theories and conclusions,this dissertation first selects three representative firms in the fields of rail transit equipment manufacturing,software information technology services and smart home equipment respectively to undertake exploratory case analyses,aiming to outline the dimensions and connotations of knowledge co-creation in the innovation ecosystem through business practice,and construct the basic framework of the relationships between knowledge co-creation in the innovation ecosystem and breakthrough innovation of the focal firm.The initial research propositions are formed by pointing out that both embedded and alliance knowledge co-creation in the innovation ecosystem will influence breakthrough innovation of the focal firm through the mediators of evolutionary and substitutional capability reconfigurations.Secondly,based on the initial research model and theoretical deduction,the research hypotheses about the relationships among variables are proposed,namely,the direct effects of(embedded and alliance)knowledge co-creation in the innovation ecosystem on breakthrough innovation of the focal firm,and the mediating roles of evolutionary and substitutional capability reconfigurations of the focal firm.Meantime,inter-organizational dependence(dependence asymmetry and joint dependence)and actor difference and actor differences(knowledge and technological ability difference,goal difference)are included.The moderating effects of their respective dimensions on the relationships between knowledge co-creation in the innovation ecosystem and capability reconfigurations of the focal firm are explored.Finally,each hypothesis is verified one by one via 382 questionnaires from local high-tech firms.The above-mentioned research works acquire the following main conclusions:1.The cross-case comparative analyses of three local firms and the tests of 382 questionnaires show that both embedded knowledge co-creation and alliance knowledge co-creation can generate new knowledge,and further positively enhance breakthrough innovation of the focal firm.2.The structural equation models and Bootstrap tests reveal that both evolutionary and substitutional capability reconfigurations have significantly partial mediating effects on the relationships between knowledge co-creation in the innovation ecosystem and breakthrough innovation of the focal firm.3.The structural equation models of inter-organizational dependence and actor difference indicate that the moderating effects of dependence asymmetry on the relationships between alliance knowledge co-creation and capability reconfiguration of the focal firm is not prominent,but it is significant on the relationships between embedded knowledge co-creation and capability reconfiguration.Joint dependence cannot only moderate the relationships between alliance knowledge co-creation and substitutional capability reconfiguration of the focal firm.Additionally,knowledge and technological ability difference can only positively and significantly moderate the relationship between alliance knowledge co-creation and evolutionary capability reconfiguration of the focal firm,while the goal difference cannot only significantly moderate the effects of alliance knowledge co-creation on substitutional capability reconfiguration.The main research contributions are as follows through the above works:1.This dissertation clarifies the dimensions and connotations of knowledge cocreation in the innovation ecosystem.The open innovation theory holds that there are different knowledge flows and interactions between the focal firm and other actors,which can co-create new knowledge.As per this,this dissertation clearly proposes the dimensions of embedded knowledge co-creation and alliance knowledge co-creation in the innovation ecosystem,which effectively recovers the deficiencies of existing literature on knowledge co-creation in the innovation ecosystem,and expands the research contexts of open innovation and innovation ecosystem.2.The current dissertation explores the essential processes of knowledge co-creation in the innovation ecosystem influencing breakthrough innovation of the focal firm,and extends the perspectives of knowledge interaction in the innovation ecosystem and breakthrough innovation.Theoretically and practically,this dissertation induces the capability reconfiguration,and deeply reveals the internal mechanisms of knowledge cocreation in the innovation ecosystem impacting breakthrough innovation of the focal firm.Simultaneously,the logical framework “knowledge co-creation--capability reconfiguration--breakthrough innovation” is reshaped.Moreover,this dissertation reconciles the tensions about the relationships between open innovation knowledge flows and breakthrough innovation to some extent by explicating the relationships between knowledge co-creation in the innovation ecosystem and breakthrough innovation,which efficiently promotes deepening development of research on open innovation and innovation ecosystem.3.This dissertation clarifies the moderating roles inter-organizational dependence and actor difference in the relationships between knowledge co-creation in the innovation ecosystem and capability reconfiguration of the focal firm.Little existing works care about differential conclusions of knowledge co-creation in the innovation ecosystem from different inter-organizational dependence and actor difference.However,they may vary under different inter-organizational dependence and actor difference levels.Therefore,centering on the inner characteristics of innovation ecosystems,both inter-organizational dependence and actor difference are regarded as contingent factors.The results broaden the research boundary of innovation ecosystem and provides novel managerial and practical guidance for focal firms which perform ecosystem knowledge co-creation and reconfigure capability by relying on dependence relationships and actor difference. |
