新兴技术企业如何利用研发合作进行技术布局是重要的研究议题。本文将企业技术布局从多元化或专业化的二元视角拓展到两者兼有的“T”型策略,并从企业与合作伙伴的熟悉程度和竞争程度两个维度探究合作对多元化、专业化和“T”型技术布局策略的影响。以2011—2020年中美自动驾驶企业为样本使用Probit模型进行实证分析,研究结果显示:企业与新伙伴、非竞争性伙伴合作均有利于突破路径依赖、横向拓宽技术领域,形成多元化技术布局;企业与原有伙伴、竞争性伙伴合作对纵向深耕核心技术领域,形成专业化技术布局的影响不显著;企业与新的竞争性伙伴合作有利于形成“T”型技术布局。异质性分析结果表明:中美两国自动驾驶企业多元化和“T”型技术布局的影响机制存在显著差异,中国企业与非竞争性伙伴合作更易形成多元化布局,与新的竞争性伙伴合作更易形成“T”型布局;而美国企业与新伙伴合作、与新的竞争性伙伴合作对多元化和“T”型技术布局没有显著影响。研究结论为我国自动驾驶企业技术布局提供了决策依据与实践启示。

Diversification or specialization is a common choice of firms for their technological layout strategies. Extant studies focus either on diversification or on specialization, which are seemed incompatible strategies for firms. However, diversification and specialization are not two ends of the same dimension. A high degree of diversification does not mean a low degree of specialization, and vice versa. Thus, this paper combined diversification with specialization and extended the technological layout strategy of firms to the “T” shaped strategy. The “T” shaped strategy means that a firm not only focuses on deeply cultivating its core technological fields, but also broadening to other related or unrelated technological fields when choosing a technological layout strategy.

Moreover, the prior literatures suggested that collaborations have impacts on the technological layout of firms, but scholars only paid attention to the influence of characteristics of collaboration, such as the alliance type, the degree of internationalization and technological distance, etc. The degree of familiarity and competition between the focal firm and its collaboration partners are ignored, and how these characteristics of R&D collaborations influence the technology layout strategy of firms is less studied until now. In reality, more and more firms form the “T” shaped strategy relying on R&D collaborations, especially for autonomous driving firms which facing on high uncertainty and technological complexity. In the field of autonomous driving, inter-firms both compete and cooperate. How the conflicts of interest between competitors affect the knowledge acquisition in the process of R&D collaborations? Whether repeated collaboration can improve mutual trust? These queries will pose new challenges for the question how R&D collaboration affects the technological layout of autonomous driving firms.

Therefore, from the perspective of new/old partners and competitive/non-competitive partners, this paper investigated how R&D partner selection influences the formation of diversification, specialization and the “T” shaped strategies of autonomous driving firms. Using a sample of Chinese and American autonomous driving firms,and collecting the panel data from 2011 to 2020 for an empirical analysis,this study reached the following new findings: first, R&D collaborations with new partners and non-competitive partners can both help firms broaden technological fields and then form the diversification strategy. Second, R&D collaborations withboth former partners and competitive partners have no significant impacts on the specialization strategy of firms. Third, R&D collaborations with newly competitive partners are conducive to the focal firm forming the “T” shaped strategy. Finally, there are significant differences between Chinese and American autonomous driving firms considering the effects of R&D collaborations on technology layout strategies. Specifically, Chinese autonomous driving firms collaborate with new R&D partners have more significant effects on the diversification strategy than American firms. Besides, Chinese autonomous driving firms collaborate with newly competitive partners have more significant effects on the “T” shaped strategy than American firms.

These findings will make contributions to the literature on R&D collaborations and technological layout strategy of firms. First, the present study extended the technological layout strategies of firms from diversification or specialization to the “T” shaped strategy. Second, this paper explored how R&D collaborations have impacts on the diversification, specialization and the “T” shaped strategies of firms, which enriches the relationships between R&D collaborations and technological layout strategies of firms.