Research On Influence Mechanism Of Innovation Openness On Dual Innovation Performance Of Enterprises

In recent years,open innovation has already been an essential strategy for Chinese enterprises to cultivate and enhance their independent innovation capabilities and achieve innovation-driven development.More and more enterprises recognize the importance of absorbing external knowledge and technology to enhance their technological innovation capability and actively develop various open innovation practices.By cooperating with a broader range of external innovation entities and conducting R&D cooperation more frequently and intensely,companies are committed to rapid and substantial increases in incremental innovation output and the pursuit of breakthrough innovation goals.However,due to the heterogeneity of enterprises,the effect of implementing open innovation strategy varies greatly.Some enterprises have achieved significant innovation performance improvement,even independent control of key core technologies.Some companies have difficulty achieving breakthrough innovation and only have a slight improvement in incremental innovation performances.The reason is that different degrees of innovation openness have different implementation conditions and compatible situations,different requirements for internal capabilities,and different effects from the external environment,thus bringing different innovation performances to different enterprises.So,does the increase in innovation openness promote enterprise dual innovation performance? What are the differences in the impacts of expanding the breadth and depth of open innovation on the performances of incremental innovation and breakthrough innovation? How does the firm’s external environment affect the firm’s open innovation activities? Which dimensions of internal capabilities influence and how do they influence open innovation activities? How do firms make open innovation decisions based on external environmental turbulence and internal technological capabilities to bring higher benefits to the firm? The above problems are essential concerns in the practice of enterprise innovation and are urgent to be solved.In theory,although open innovation has become an important research direction in the field of innovation at home and abroad,there are still research gaps in the influence mechanism of innovation openness on enterprise dual innovation performance.To answer the above questions and make up for the lack of current literature,this study is devoted to revealing the influence mechanism of enterprise innovation openness on dual innovation performance,including the direct influence mechanism,mediating mechanism,moderating mechanism,and restraint mechanism,based on resource-based theory,knowledge-based theory,and enterprise capability theory.Specifically,the critical research questions mainly focus on the following four aspects:(1)How does innovation openness(openness breadth,openness depth)affect enterprise dual innovation performance(incremental innovation performance,breakthrough innovation performance)?(2)How do knowledge complexity and technological autonomy and control mediate between innovation openness and enterprise dual innovation performance?(3)How does environmental turbulence(market turbulence,technological turbulence,institutional turbulence)mediate between innovation openness and dual innovation performance?(4)What are the threshold effects of internal capabilities(internal R&D capability,absorptive knowledge capability,risk-taking capability,network organization capability)in the relationship between innovation openness and dual innovation performance?To test the above research questions,this study theoretically deduces the relationship between core variables such as innovation openness,dual innovation performance,knowledge complexity,technological autonomy and control,environmental turbulence,and internal capabilities of enterprises.We then construct a theoretical model and propose research hypotheses.This study collects data through a questionnaire survey method and takes small and medium-sized enterprises in Jiangsu,Zhejiang,and Shanghai as research samples.A total of 480 valid questionnaires were collected.Through empirical analysis,several conclusions are obtained:(1)The breadth and depth of innovation openness positively affect enterprises’ incremental innovation performance and radical innovation performance.(2)Knowledge complexity and technological autonomy and control play a chain mediating role in the relationship between innovation openness and the dual innovation performance of enterprises.(3)Environmental turbulence significantly moderates the relationship between innovation openness and dual innovation performance.The direction and significance of the moderating effects of market turbulence,technological turbulence,and institutional turbulence differ.(4)A firm’s internal capability constrains the positive effect of innovation openness on dual innovation performance.The threshold effects of internal R&D capability,absorptive knowledge capacity,risk-taking capability,and network organization capability are different.The main contributions of this study are as follows:(1)From the perspective of knowledge and technology,this study constructs and empirically tests a chain mediation model with knowledge complexity and technological autonomy and control as mediating variables.The existing research has not yet formed a unified definition of technology autonomy and control,has not clearly explained the theoretical mechanism of its role,and has not empirically tested its role.This study provides the connotation of technological autonomy and control,theoretically expounds its influence mechanism in the open innovation process,and conducts empirical tests.The findings offer reference for empirical analysis on technological autonomy and control in future research,and promote the development of empirical research in the innovation research field.The results of this study deepen the understanding of the relationship between variables such as innovation openness,knowledge complexity,technological autonomy and control,and dual innovation performance and provide a new research perspective and expansion direction for subsequent research focusing on open innovation mechanisms.(2)When studying the impact of environmental turbulence,this study adds the institutional dimension to the market dimension and technology dimension.In previous studies on the impact of environmental turbulence on open innovation,scholars mainly focused on market turbulence and technical turbulence,ignoring institutional turbulence.However,the existing research lacks a clear and consistent definition of institutional turbulence,and there is little empirical research in the context of open innovation.This study re-expounds the connotation of institutional turbulence,describes the mechanism of institutional turbulence,and conducts empirical tests,which can make up for the above research gap on institutional turbulence and enrich the research on the external environment of open innovation.(3)Based on combing the enterprise capabilities involved in the open innovation literature,this study summarizes the four internal capabilities required for open innovation: internal R&D capabilities,knowledge absorption capabilities,risk-taking capabilities,and network organization capabilities.We then theoretically deduce and empirically examines the threshold effect of each dimension of enterprise capabilities.Although the current research generally recognizes the importance of internal capabilities and studies some of them,it does not place them in the same research framework.It is impossible to compare the differences in the role of capabilities in various dimensions more clearly.There is a lack of systematic research on enterprise capabilities.The results of this study reflect the threshold effect of each dimension of capability in the relationship between openness breadth and depth and incremental and breakthrough innovation performance.This study refines the research on enterprise capability in the innovation field and deepens the understanding of the influence mechanism of each dimension of capability under an innovation background.In practice,our results can provide a direction for enterprises to achieve key core technology breakthroughs through open innovation strategies.This paper answers the practical problem of better performing open innovation for enterprises according to the external environment scenarios of the market,technology,institution,and other dimensions,combined with the internal capabilities of different dimensions.We provide guidance for Chinese enterprises,especially small and medium-sized enterprises,on how to achieve incremental innovation and breakthrough innovation through open innovation,and provide useful reference for enterprise innovation practice.