從母公司身上學習：知識學習、知識流動和利用/探索如何影響合資公司之創新績效

Abstract

企業為求創新必須持續的取得與發展新知識和技能，但是創新的來源與過程很少侷限在一個別廠商的疆界之中。其中之一種廠商合作就是合資，它是由兩家或更多的母公司以股權投資的方式所形成的獨立個體。合資可以是一種很強的廠商連結藉以持續承諾分享創新的目標，基於此，以下為本研究的四個研究目標。 1.檢視從母公司身上知識學習、知識流動對合資公司創新績效的主要影響。 2.檢視從其母公司身上利用/探索對合資公司創新績效的主要影響。 3.檢視母公司知識的豐富性、母公司知識的多樣性、合資公司知識的多樣性是否能調和知識學習、知識流動與創新績效的關係。. 4.檢視母公司與合資公司在技術、國家與產業的相似性是否能調和利用/探索與 創新績效的關係。 研究結果顯示知識學習與知識流動有助於合資公司的創新，母公司知識的多樣性與合資公司知識的多樣性在知識學習與流動對創新績效的影響有正向的調和關係；而公司知識的豐富性扮演對知識流動與創新績效負向調和的關係。此一論文接下來對策略管理文獻中探索與利用概念的討論有所貢獻，主要結論為合資公司對母公司的知識利用有一倒U的關係，亦即對合資公司之創新績效存在一最適的利用點。合資公司與母公司的技術與國家相似度對知識利用與創新扮演正向調和的角色；此外當利用度較低時，產業的相似性對創新績效有一較佳之改善效果。這些貢獻讓我們更佳瞭解合資公司與母公司靜態與動態互動對其創新績效之影響。

Innovation requires that firms continually acquire and develop new knowledge and skill. But the sources and the process of innovation are rarely confined within the boundaries of individual firms. Innovation is such a complex and uncertain activity; it commonly requires the combination of knowledge from a multiplicity of sources. One of the collaboration between firms is a joint venture, formed by two or more partners as a separate company with shared equity investments. It could be a strong mechanism linking firms on the basis of continuing commitment to share innovational objectives. According to these, there are four research objectives as described below. 1. To examine the main effect of knowledge learning, knowledge flow from its parents’ on innovation performance of joint venture. 2. To examine the main effect of exploitation/exploration with its parents’ on innovation performance of joint venture. 3. To examine whether parent knowledge richness, parent knowledge diversity and JV knowledge diversity will moderate the relationship between knowledge learning, knowledge flow and innovation performance. 4. To examine whether JV-Parent similarity in technology, country and industry will moderate the relationship between exploitation/exploration and innovation performance. The result sheds new light by identifying knowledge learning, knowledge flow benefit innovation for joint venture. Parent knowledge diversity and joint venture knowledge diversity appears to be positive moderators by which leverage knowledge learning or knowledge flow for the development of innovation. Parent knowledge richness negatively moderates the relationship between knowledge flow and innovation performance of the joint venture. This thesis contributes to the ongoing discussion of the exploitation/exploration conceptualization in the strategic management literature. The primary conclusion presents a joint venture’s exploitation from its parent’s knowledge has an inverted U-shaped relationship which suggests the existence for an optimal level of exploitation for joint venture’s innovation performance. JV-Parents technology similarity and country similarity positively moderates the relationship between knowledge exploitation and innovation performance of joint venture. Besides, industrial similarity would achieve a better improvement effect on innovation performance when they are in a lower degree of exploitation. The contributions let us to understand the static and dynamic relational interaction between joint venture and parents to explain the innovation performance.