| The advanced manufacturing industry is a manufacturing industry with deep integration of digital technology and is at the high end of the value chain.present currently,China’s advanced manufacturing industry is facing the severe challenges of "high-end reflux" and "technology containment" from developed countries,however,it also faces an important opportunity for digital transformation.The Chinese manufacturing industry has accumulated rich heterogeneous knowledge from simple processing to the complex production process and formed its knowledge base,which is no longer a simple collection of knowledge elements,but a knowledge network formed by the coupling relationship between knowledge elements.The knowledge network captures the commonality of technical topics of different knowledge elements and can guide the recombination among potential knowledge elements.Knowledge network embedding reflects the intensity of combinations occurring among knowledge elements and the variability of their positions in the knowledge network,which has an important impact on enterprises’ absorption,utilization and reorganization of internal and external knowledge resources.Digital transformation enhances the ability of enterprises to identify,acquire and utilize complex information knowledge,accelerates the process of creating and accumulating knowledge,and broadens the width of the knowledge base.As the complexity of innovation increases,advanced manufacturing companies need to balance exploitative innovation,which relies on improving existing technologies to achieve sustainable profitability,and exploratory innovation,which breaks through existing technological fields to open up new markets for sustained competitiveness,i.e.ambidextrous innovation.Therefore,can knowledge network embedding and digital transformation carry the ambidextrous innovation of advanced manufacturing enterprises and what is the mechanism of their influence on each other? This is an important question that needs to be urgently addressed by Chinese advanced manufacturing enterprises.Using a combination of literature review and summarization methods,social network analysis,theoretical analysis,and empirical analysis,this paper integrates internal and external factors into a research framework using 2005-2020 information on invention patents applied for by 254 listed companies in China’s advanced manufacturing industry and data on enterprise characteristics,and focuses on addressing the core question of "Can knowledge network embedding and digital transformation carry ambidextrous innovation in advanced manufacturing enterprises,and what is the mechanism of influence between them?" Moreover,three sub-questions are explored in depth step by step from two perspectives of knowledge network embedding and digital transformation:(1)Decoupling knowledge networks and exploring what is the influence mechanism of advanced manufacturing enterprises’ knowledge network embedding on ambidextrous innovation.(2)Based on the perspective of knowledge management,what is the influence mechanism of digital transformation of advanced manufacturing enterprises on ambidextrous innovation?(3)How do knowledge network embedding and digital transformation in advanced manufacturing enterprises interact with each other to affect ambidextrous innovation activities?Firstly,the knowledge network is decoupled,and the differential effects of relational embedding and structural embedding of the knowledge network on ambidextrous innovation are investigated in terms of both relational embedding and structural embedding of the knowledge network,and the mechanism of the role of knowledge diversity and knowledge integration in it is analyzed.The research samples are selected according to the definition of core concepts in this paper,the patent information of sample enterprises and their subsidiaries are retrieved and collated from the patent database of the State Intellectual Property Office(SIPO),and the patent data in enterprise-year format are aggregated concerning existing research methods;the knowledge network of advanced manufacturing enterprises is constructed based on social network theory,to measure the characteristics of knowledge network embeddedness.Based on the negative binomial regression model,it is found that the influence of relational embedding in knowledge networks on ambidextrous innovation is inverted U-shaped;the higher the level of structural embedding in knowledge networks,the more beneficial to exploitative innovation;the influence of structural embedding in knowledge networks on exploratory innovation is inverted U-shaped;The increase in the level of knowledge diversity makes the inverted U-shaped relationship between knowledge network relationship embedding and exploratory innovation smoother;the increase in the level of knowledge diversity weakens the positive influence of knowledge network structure embedding on exploitative innovation;knowledge integration in the enterprise knowledge network.Knowledge integration mediates the effect of embedding on ambidextrous innovation.Second,investigates the overall impact of digital transformation on ambidextrous innovation from a multidimensional perspective,and sorts out the mechanisms of external knowledge search,mediating the role of knowledge base breadth and regulating the mechanism of environmental turbulence,revealing the evolution mechanism of knowledge-centred innovation in advanced manufacturing enterprises in the digital economy.This study employs a text-mining approach to construct digital transformation proxies using multi-source heterogeneous data from both the academic and industrial domains.The empirical analysis is conducted through negative binomial regression models,and the study finds that the digital transformation of enterprises has a facilitating effect on ambidextrous innovation;volatility of the market environment reinforces the facilitating effect of digital transformation of enterprises on ambidextrous innovation;External knowledge search and knowledge base width mediate the effect of digital transformation of enterprises on ambidextrous innovation.Finally,integrating internal and external factors into a theoretical framework investigates the interaction effect of knowledge network embedding and digital transformation on ambidextrous innovation in advanced manufacturing firms.Through the empirical analysis of negative binomial regression model,the study finds that knowledge network relationship embedding strengthens the facilitating effect of digital transformation on exploitative innovation,and digital transformation makes the inverted U-shaped curve relationship between knowledge network relationship embedding and exploitative innovation flatter;knowledge network structure embedding strengthens the facilitating effect of digital transformation on exploitative innovation;digital transformation also strengthens the facilitating effect of knowledge network structure digital transformation also strengthens the role of knowledge network structure embedding in promoting utilization-based innovation.The innovations of this study are mainly in the following three areas.First,based on the perspective of knowledge attributes,we clarify the differentiated mechanism of knowledge network embedding on ambidextrous innovation in advanced manufacturing enterprises in terms of both "quantity" and "quality" of knowledge network embedding.The findings help to clarify that the real reason for "key core technologies being restricted by others" is the neglect of exploring external heterogeneous knowledge resources,and provide new ideas for solving the problem of "application over foundation" in Chinese advanced manufacturing enterprises.Secondly,based on the perspective of knowledge management,we explore the impact mechanism of digital transformation on ambidextrous innovation in advanced manufacturing enterprises and enrich the theoretical and empirical research on the micro effects of digital transformation.The study finds that the wide application of enabling technologies brought by digital transformation in advanced manufacturing enterprises accelerates the process of knowledge creation and knowledge accumulation,broadens the width of the knowledge base,and promotes ambidextrous innovation activities,revealing the mechanism of knowledge-centred innovation evolution in advanced manufacturing enterprises in the digital economy;reveals that there is a reinforcing effect of the volatility of market environment on the relationship between digital transformation and ambidextrous innovation.enriches the research on digital innovation management;the study finds that knowledge-based search emphasizes the importance of knowledge linkages through which combined opportunities or new knowledge elements can be searched for,thus promoting ambidextrous innovation.Third,based on the overall organizational perspective,the impact of knowledge network embedding overlaying digital transformation on the ambidextrous innovation of advanced manufacturing enterprises is studied,and the deep integration of knowledge management and digital innovation management is enhanced.Knowledge is the core resource of enterprise innovation,knowledge network embedding affects the absorption,utilization and reorganization of enterprise knowledge resources,and digital transformation improves the ability of enterprise knowledge resource management.This paper explores the capability mechanism of autonomous innovation evolving from the fusion of knowledge network embedding and digital transformation in advanced manufacturing enterprises,and the research findings provide a theoretical basis for enterprises to effectively deal with the dilemma of "success trap" and "failure trap" in the process of survival and development. |
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