Research On The Impact Of Technological Innovation Output And Mode Of Enterprises On Trade Friction

In recent years,the number of global trade remedy cases in the information and communication technology(ICT)industry has been increasing.ICT enterprises are suffering from more and more trade frictions,such as the US boycott of China’s 5G enterprises,Japan’s restrictions on South Korean ICT enterprises to import equipment to it,Ericsson’s patent dispute with Samsung,and so on.Under the background of "friction economy era" with many unstable and uncertain factors,hidden and diversified trade frictions will increase the operating costs of enterprises,inhibit the export of new products,hinder the normal research and development(R&D)activities,and seriously affect their operation and development.Therefore,it is an urgent problem to explore the influencing factors of ICT companies suffering from trade frictions and how to reduce the risks of trade frictions.For ICT companies,technological innovation is a key factor for them to gain a competitive advantage.Moreover,some scholars have found that technological innovation factors such as total factor productivity and independent innovation capability have an impact on trade frictions.However,most scholars focus on the analysis from the perspective of a single variable.What is the impact of different combinations of factors in ICT enterprises’ technological innovation on trade frictions? What are the specific action paths? How can ICT enterprises avoid the risk of trade friction to the greatest extent?These research problems need to be further analyzed.This paper explores the impact of the configuration effect of five factors in ICT enterprises’ technological innovation output and model on trade friction: first,based on the technology-organization-environment(TOE)framework,this paper analyzed the three technical(T)factors of independent innovation capability,level of technological diversification,core technical capability and the two organizational(O)factors of R&D internationalization depth and R&D internationalization breadth,on the impact of external trade frictions environment(E)on enterprises from the theoretical level.Then qualitative comparative analysis(QCA)method of multi period and multi linear growth was used with 48 global ICT enterprises as sample cases.This paper discussed the impact of different combinations of these five factors on ICT enterprises’ trade frictions: independent innovation capability,technology diversification level,core technology capability,R&D internationalization depth and R&D internationalization breadth.Six options for reducing the frequency of trade frictions for enterprises were identified: "Enhancing independent innovation capability,concentrating technology types and reducing the depth of cross-border R&D","Enhancing technological innovation capability","Concentrating technology types,reducing the depth of cross-border R&D but expanding the breadth","Reducing independent innovation ability and depth of transnational R&D","Reducing the ability of technological innovation","Increasing the depth of cross-border R&D but reducing the breadth".The results show that:(1)Changes in a single condition variable cannot reduce the frequency of trade frictions suffered by firms.(2)At the stage when the overall technological innovation capability of the industry is improving,companies with weakened technological capabilities are vulnerable to trade frictions;at the stage when the overall technological innovation capabilities of the industry are weakened,companies with enhanced technological capabilities are vulnerable to trade frictions.(3)In the above two stages,when the level of technological diversification of ICT companies decreases,they can reduce trade friction by reducing the depth of R&D internationalization but expanding the breadth of R&D internationalization.(4)Through the analysis of the differentiated paths of different regions in the second stage,it is found that there are obvious differences in the path results of ICT companies in Asia,Europe and North America.Finally,this paper took Qualcomm as an example,and analyzes how Qualcomm can avoid the risk of trade friction through these three paths: "Enhancing technological innovation capability","Reducing technological innovation capability" and "Concentrating technology types and reducing cross-border R&D depth but expanding breadth".In conclusion,this paper explores the impact of the configuration effect of the five elements of ICT enterprises’ technological innovation on their exposure to trade frictions,providing theoretical reference for ICT enterprises to effectively avoid the risk of trade frictions.