The Impact Of Emerging Technology Orientation On Financial Performance And Patent Quantity

Emerging technology orientation and customer orientation are two important organizational aspirations in many firms.Recent research in international management academia has focused on how firms respond to the challenges and opportunities posed by the post-pandemic through two key organizational aspirations.Emerging technology orientation can help firms further develop their emerging technology capabilities after the pandemic,realize digital transformation and accelerate high-quality growth.Most of the existing research focuses only on how to develop and use emerging technologies,few articles have examined the mechanism of how emerging technology orientation affects innovation and firm performance.Customer orientation is an important research topic in marketing and innovation management,which is regarded as an important antecedent that affects the company’s excellent performance and innovation.Customer-oriented companies are committed to satisfying customers’ needs,and making unremitting efforts to create maximum value for customers.However,few studies have examined how customer orientation moderates the effects of emerging technology orientation on innovation and firm performance.Therefore,simultaneously exploring the relationship between emerging technology orientation and customer orientation and firm performance will help guide firm innovation and management decision-making,promote the development of digital innovation theory in China.Based on the behavioral theory of the firm,this thesis develops a research model that examines the relationship between two strategic orientations(emerging technology orientation and customer orientation)on firm performance(patent quantity and financial performance)and the moderating effects of customer orientation on the relationship between the orientation and performance.Strictly following internationally recognized methods of thematic based content analysis and secondary data collection,this thesis collects research data from 449 Chinese manufacturing companies.This paper uses moderated multiple regression and pick-a-point methods to test the proposed theoretical model and research hypotheses.The results show that:(1)Emerging technology orientation improves firm’s net profit,but it does not significantly affect firm’s economic value added and patent quantity.(2)Customer orientation positively moderates both the relationship between emerging technology orientation and financial performance and the relationship between emerging technology orientation and patent quantity.(3)When customer orientation is low,emerging technology orientation reduces economic value added and the number of patents.As the level of customer orientation increases,emerging technology orientation shifts from decreasing to increasing economic value added and patent quantity.(4)When customer orientation is high,emerging technology orientation increases both financial performance and patent quantity.The research results enrich emerging technology orientation empirical research,extend the application of the behavioral theory of the firm in the field of innovation,and promote the development of digital innovation theory in China.In addition,the research results reconcile and explain the contradictory conclusions among the three schools of firm behavior theory,help to resolve the ongoing debate on the relationship between orientation and performance,enrich the existing research on strategic orientation.At the same time,finds interaction effects of emerging technology orientation and customer orientation,expand the mechanism of multiple aspirations in the behavioral theory of the firm.The mechanism of interaction can guide Chinese firms on how to use customer orientation as the starting point and use emerging technology orientation to promote firm innovation and improve financial performance.