摘要
高水平的跨组织知识转移是产学研合作顺畅运行的粘合剂,是实现高校和企业深度融合的主要体现之一。然而现有研究视角大多基于企业组织层面展开,且主要聚焦于结构和关系视角,无法有效解释外部知识搜寻战略与创新绩效关系间争议性的研究结论。依托组织控制机制理论,本文采用必要条件分析(NCA)与结构方程模型(SEM)的混合方法,对不同控制机制的单独和组合影响效应进行了精确刻画,分析了外部知识搜寻和控制机制对产学研合作创新绩效的影响关系。基于181份中国大型企业参与的产学研合作项目调查数据,研究1表明,两种外部知识搜寻战略中只有搜寻深度是合作创新项目绩效的必要条件;两种控制机制(过程控制和结果控制)均为合作创新项目绩效的关键必要条件,如果任何一种控制机制阈值没有达到一定水平,就会降低整个合作创新项目绩效水平。研究2发现,过程控制和结果控制在外部知识搜寻宽度和深度与产学研合作项目绩效间至少存在部分中介效应,进一步验证了控制机制对合作创新项目绩效的重要影响。本文研究发现不仅有助于理解产学研网络中不同的控制机制如何有效提升跨组织知识转移效率,而且为合作创新项目中个体组织正确实施外部知识搜寻战略提供了治理决策依据。
In the face of increasingly dynamic external environment,highly dispersed resources and increasingly complex product technology,the cost of innovation is rapidly increasing,while the life cycle of newly developed products is constantly shortening.Therefore,a single firm can hardly cope with these emerging innovation challenges with internal resources alone.At present,firm innovation must be through University-Industry Collaboration(UIC)with the outside world.A higher level of inter-organizational knowledge transfer is the binder and main characteristic of smooth operation in UIC.However,does implementing an active interorganizational knowledge search strategy really improve UIC innovation performance?Why are there many UIC innovation projects with unsatisfactory performance in reality?The latest empirical research on the relationship between external knowledge search strategy and innovation performance has produced some controversial and even contradictory conclusions,such as negative and non-linear results.The reason for the conflicting research conclusions may be that most recent studies are based on firm level and focused on structure and relationship which cannot effectively explain the controversial results in the relationship between external knowledge search strategy and innovation performance.In addition,the contradictory conclusion may also be due to the fact that some core mechanisms between knowledge search strategy and innovation performance have not yet been discovered,resulting in the paradox of inter-organizational knowledge sharing and knowledge protection,which ultimately affects the improvement of the above innovation performance.In recent years,the research perspective of knowledge transfer process control based on UIC network has gradually attracted the attention of scholars.This perspective focuses on the analysis of the interaction process of cooperation and innovation among organizations in the collaborative innovation project of UIC network.It is necessary to consider the utilization and protection of relevant intellectual property rights while improving the width and depth of knowledge search.In order to solve the knowledge sharing and hiding dilemma in the process of cooperative innovation,firms need to adopt a certain control mechanism when searching and transferring knowledge.Therefore,it is possible to explain the above controversial research conclusions by analyzing the control mechanism from the perspective of process.However,the existing empirical research has paid little attention to this problem,and the research from the project level is even less.In addition,due to the limitations of traditional empirical research methods,existing empirical research takes external knowledge search and corresponding control mechanism as sufficient conditions for analysis,but there are shortcomings in detecting and infering the logical relations of necessary conditions,especially the specific impact of different variable levels on the innovation performance of dependent variables.In order to solve the above research problems and address research gaps,this study examines organizational control mechanism and combines the methods of NCA(Necessary Condition Analysis)and SEM(Structural Equation Modeling)to investigate the effects of project-level external knowledge search strategy(breadth and depth)on the performance of UIC innovation project.I further consider these effects mediated by two forms of control mechanisms(process and outcome control)in different stages of a project.Built on a survey of 181 managers responsible for an UIC innovation project in large firms,the results of research 1 showed that although external knowledge search breadth isn’t a necessary condition for high level innovation performance,but the depth is,as well as the two forms of control mechanisms(process and outcome control).If any of the two control mechanisms doesn’t reach the specific threshold value,the overall level of the whole UIC innovation project performance will decrease.The results of research 2 showed that the control mechanism mediates the relationship between external knowledge search breadth and depth and the innovation performance of UIC innovation project.These results further confirmed the important role of control mechanism.These results shed further light on the new research perspective for the management of UIC innovation from inter-organizational project level,extending the discussion from the single firm level.First,this paper clarified the subtle differences between external knowledge search strategies at project level and organizational level:simply increasing the breadth of external knowledge search in UIC projects does not improve innovation performance.This finding enriched the knowledge search strategy theory at project level.Second,using NCA method,this paper found the basic guarantee effect of different control mechanisms on the UIC innovation performance.Third,this study uncovered the theoretical black box of the mediation effect of control mechanisms and found that not only do different control mechanisms exist in UIC projects,but also the effects of different control mechanisms are different.Finally,these findings not only help to better understand how different control mechanisms increase the efficiency of inter-organizational knowledge transfer,but also provide basis on external knowledge search strategy decision making for individuals in UIC innovation projects.
作者
王长峰
Wang Changfeng(College of Economics and Management,Zhejiang Normal University;Center for Jiangnan Culture Studies,Zhejiang Normal University;School of Psychology,Zhejiang Normal University)
出处
《南开管理评论》
北大核心
2025年第2期186-196,共11页
Nankai Business Review
基金
国家社会科学基金重点项目(22AGL006)资助。
关键词
知识搜寻宽度
知识搜寻深度
过程控制
结果控制
产学研合作项目
创新绩效
Knowledge Search Breadth
Knowledge Search Depth
Process Control
Outcome Control
UIC Innovation Project
Innovation Performance
