Empirical Research On The Mechanism Of Product Modularity To R&D Performance

With the rapid development of IT and network economy, the concept of modularity has become one of hot topics in economics and management nowadays. In theory, the use of a modular research has become an important research direction. As an exploratory study, this dissertation based on the theory of modularization and integration competence tries to analyze the construct of product modularity, summarize the process mechanism, and explore the influence mechanism on R&D performance. With the methods of literature review, large sample empirical study, this dissertation answers the following three research questions step by step:what’s the meaning and elements of product modularity? How it influences the R&D performance? What’s the relationship between product modularity and integration competence?Through the above research, this dissertation gets two conclusions as follow:(1) Based on amount of literature, this dissertation proposes that functional binding, interface standardization and decomposability make up product modularity. The scale of the concept is proposed and has good reliability and validity, this conclusion has great significance on the better use of modularity;(2) Integration competence plays a mediator role between product modularity and R&D performance. Based on empirical study on148responses from companies in the Yangtze River Delta, this dissertation finds that there are two pathways:interface standardization through supplier integration competence on R&D performance; decomposability through design integration competence on R&D performance. Especially, supplier integration competence and design integration competence play an important role in R&D performance.Throughout the whole dissertation, there are three innovative theoretical contributions:(1) It is a proposition of the construct of product modularity. Based on the strict theoretical analysis, this dissertation proposes the concept and elements of product modularity. It is beneficial to overcome the problems of vague to comprehend and difficult to measure in existing researches, and makes the promotion of scrupulously quantitative research on product modularity; (2) It is an exploration on the relationship among product modularity, integration competence and R&D performance. This dissertation constructs a theoretical framework of product modularity, integration competence and R&D performance and unfolds the black box of "product modularity—R&D performance". As a whole, this research explained the product modularity mechanism from the logic relation of behavior, capability and performance.(3) This dissertation empirically proves that supplier integration competence and design integration competence are two paths from product modularity to R&D performance. Especially, supplier integration competence is mainly reflected in the enterprise ability of sharing information with suppliers, design integration competence is mainly reflected in the degree of production managers’participation in product R&D design stage.