关键词: 技术甄选, 整合型战略, 自治型战略, 技术重叠, 关系重叠

Abstract:     Technology acquisitions are typical open innovation patterns. The acquiring company′s purpose is to acquire external technological resources, then to fill, expand, and update its knowledge base. Technology acquisitions can provide acquiring companies with rapid access to new technology opportunities, and meanwhile cause them to fall into the dilemma of "integration" or "autonomy" when they choose strategic models after technology acquisitions, which significantly reduce the benefits of technology acquisitions. Therefore, how to get out of the dilemma of "integration" or "autonomy" after technology acquisitions is a fundamental research problem that lacks in-depth exploration.The existing studies on strategic model choices after technology acquisitions have focused on how to use "integration" and "autonomy" strategy to improve utilization the efficiency of external technological resources and to achieve innovation goals of post-acquisitions. However, it is one side that considering how to utilize "integration" and "autonomy" strategy to reconfigure and make full use of technological resources originating from acquired companies by organizing and managing them. The more interesting question is how strategic choices after technology acquisitions have been made. Then the activities of technology acquisition not only need to describe their value creation characteristics, and realize technology acquisition value by integrating and reconstructing acquired technological resources, but also need to pay attention to identifying and selecting value opportunities of technological resources. On the one hand, identifying the value of technological resources is the sourcing and triggering point of the technology acquisition process, and is the most critical part of the technology acquisition process. On the other hand, the technological selection will directly affect the choices of post-acquisition strategic models. However, the existing research only reveals how to use "integration" and "autonomy" to improve the utilization efficiency of technological resources after technology acquisitions. The relationship between pre-acquisition technology selection and post-acquisition strategic model choices has been separated. The questions about how to adequately match them have not been fully paid attention. This paper constructs a theoretical model about pre-acquisition technology selection, resource overlap and post-acquisition strategic model choices, puts forward research hypotheses, and tests them with multiple linear regression analysis. The results show that intra-boundary technological selection has significantly positive impact on integrated strategic choice, but no significant effect on autonomous strategic decision. Boundary-spanning technological selection has significantly positive impact on autonomous strategic choice, but no significant effect on integrated strategic choice. Technological overlap positively moderates the relationship between intra-boundary technological selections and integrated strategic choices, and negatively moderates the relationship between boundary-spanning technological selection and autonomous strategic choice. Relational overlap negatively moderates the relationship between intra-boundary technological selections and integrated strategic choices, and positively moderates the relationship between boundary-spanning technological selection and autonomous strategic choice. This paper breaks through existing partial research perspectives, clarifies the relationship between technological selection, resource overlap and post-acquisition strategy model choice from the perspective of overall value creation. It also reveals the internal mechanism about how acquiring companies make strategic model choices after technology acquisitions, opens up the "black box" of how to make the right strategic model choices after technology acquisitions.The theoretical contributions and managerial implications are as follows: Firstly, the study summarizes the inherent laws of technological selection in technology acquisitions and enriches the relevant theories of technological selection in the field of technology acquisition research. By dividing post-acquisition strategy into "integrated strategy" and "autonomous strategy", previous studies have revealed how companies can use the "integration" and "autonomy" to absorb valuable resources of acquired companies to reshape their organizational capabilities, structures, and resources to achieve post-acquisition innovation goals. This view ignores the importance of technological selection, separates the relationship between pre-acquisition technological selection and post-acquisition strategic model choices. This paper closely links them, points out that technological selection has a direct impact on post-acquisition strategic model choices, and it is an important prerequisite and basis for choosing an appropriate strategic model after technology acquisitions. The paper results require enterprises to consider all aspects of technology acquisition, especially technological selection, combined with their technology basis and technology needs, weighing intra-boundary and boundary-spanning technological selection in technology acquisitions.Secondly, conclusions answer the theoretical and practical problem on how to get out of the dilemma of "integration" or "autonomy" after technology acquisitions, make up for the relevant theories of strategic model choices after technology acquisitions. The results reveal the internal mechanism of how to match the pre-acquisition technological selection behaviors and the post-acquisition strategy model choices. That is, when companies adopt boundary-spanning technological selections, they need to choose an integrated strategy model to seek methods that combine its prior technological knowledge with technological knowledge of acquired companies to expand and extend its existing technology base. When companies adopt cross-border technological selections, they need to choose an autonomous strategic model to promote companies engaging in innovation activities in new technological direction by allowing acquired companies to operate independently and use new technological knowledge instead of linking with existing technological knowledge. The results suggest that if managers select external technological knowledge in the existing technology field, they must choose an integrated strategy after technology acquisition to create new value, and select external technological knowledge across existing technology field, it is necessary to choose an autonomous strategy to create new value after technology acquisition.Finally, the paper reveals the complicated relationship between resource overlap and pre-acquisition technological selection and post-acquisition strategic model choices, deepening our understanding of the relationship between them. The results suggest that companies should not only fully consider the relationship between technological selection and different strategic models after technology acquisitions, but also focus on the important roles played by resources overlap. For intra-boundary technological selection and integrating into the existing structure after technology acquisition, acquiring companies should as much as possible choose acquired companies that overlap with own technological resources, and try to avoid a high degree of relational resources overlap, conducts technology acquisitions to improve the implementation effect of an integrated strategy. For boundary-spanning technological selections and maintain its operation after technology acquisitions, acquiring companies should as much as possible choose acquired companies that overlap with their relational resources while avoiding a high degree of technological resources overlap, improve the implementation effect of autonomous strategy.

Key words:  technological selection, integrated strategy, autonomous strategy, technological overlap, relational overlap