科研管理 ›› 2023, Vol. 44 ›› Issue (10): 43-52.DOI: 10.19571/j.cnki.1000-2995.2023.10.005

• 论文 • 上一篇    下一篇

TMT外部社会资本、警觉性与探索式创新

王传征,葛玉辉   

  1. 上海理工大学管理学院,上海200093
  • 收稿日期:2021-11-25 修回日期:2022-06-27 出版日期:2023-10-20 发布日期:2023-10-10
  • 通讯作者: 王传征
  • 基金资助:
    教育部人文社会科学研究规划基金项目:“基于团队生命周期的TMT认知演化对决策绩效的影响研究”(17YJA630020, 2017.07—2021.12);上海市一流学科建设项目(S1201YLXK, 2019.01—2022.12)。

TMT external social capital, alertness and exploratory innovation

Wang Chuanzheng, Ge Yuhui   

  1. Business School, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai 200093, China
  • Received:2021-11-25 Revised:2022-06-27 Online:2023-10-20 Published:2023-10-10

摘要:    高管团队(Top Management Team,TMT)的外部社会资本是影响探索式创新的重要因素,但目前二者间关系的争议依然存在。本文探讨了TMT外部社会资本对探索式创新绩效的利弊之争,并分析了TMT警觉性的调节作用。结果表明,TMT外部社会资本的网络中心性和关系强度与探索式创新绩效均呈倒U型关系,TMT警觉性对探索式创新具有正向影响。此外,研究结果还揭示了TMT警觉性减少了高水平外部社会资本(网络中心性和关系强度)的负面影响,即随着TMT警觉性的增强,网络中心性和关系强度与探索式创新的曲线关系将更为陡峭,倒U型关系的负斜率更大。研究结论有助于澄清社会资本的模糊效应,揭示了TMT在战略行动中的实际心理和社会过程,体现了将高阶理论从以往广泛使用的TMT人口统计变量转向更深层次变量研究的重要性。

关键词: 网络中心性, 网络关系强度, TMT警觉性, 探索式创新

Abstract:     Innovation is an important factor to guarantee success in enterprise performance. An enterprise′s competitive advantage not only lies in the development of existing technology and resources to improve efficiency, but also lies in the development of new innovation opportunities. For enterprises, exploratory innovation is a relatively large and radical innovation behavior. Exploratory innovation is an important choice, and the evolution process of enterprise exploratory innovation is constantly disturbed by products and processes, and also affected by TMT (Top Management Team) strategic decisions. The social capital of TMT dynamic capabilities drives the theoretical development of how TMT affects the level of exploratory innovation and provides new insights into why some TMT may decide to increase exploratory innovation while others may not, or even decide to reduce exploratory innovation.Social capital is a complex concept, and the relationship between external social capital and exploratory innovation may be more complex than previously described. Many scholars also recognize the possible negative effects of social capital and warn of the need to delve into its “dark side”. Therefore, it is urgent and important to clarify the exact relationship between TMT external social capital and exploratory innovation performance. TMT cognitive process affects social capital. If we do not understand TMT cognitive characteristics, we cannot evaluate the impact of social capital on exploratory innovation. TMT alertness is the cognitive ability to deal with dynamic environmental changes that a company faces through higher perception. However, TMT alertness, which emphasizes mental processes, has largely not received sufficient academic attention. Therefore, this paper attempts to explore the social and cognitive mechanism of exploratory innovation by integrating TMT cognition, social capital and innovation, which are three interrelated theoretical modules, and helps to create a complete picture of TMT external social capital′s understanding of exploratory innovation.The results of this paper showed that there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between network centrality, relationship strength and exploratory innovation. This paper confirmed that TMT alertness has a positive impact on exploratory innovation, indicating that TMT with higher alertness can scan, perceive and judge exploratory innovation opportunities. Furthermore, this paper found that TMT alertness moderated the curve relationship between network connection centrality and relationship strength and exploratory innovation, that is, with the increase of TMT alertness, the curve relationship between network centrality and exploratory innovation would be steeper, and the negative slope of the inverted U-shaped relationship would be larger.The contributions of this paper are as follows: First, this paper will help to reveal the “actual psychological and social processes that transform TMT execution characteristics into strategic actions”, deepen the understanding of the strategic process of exploratory innovation, and effectively respond to the call for more research on the antecedents of exploratory innovation. Second, the research results have confirmed the contradiction of external social capital of TMT, which are concerned by previous literature, and will help clarify the fuzzy effect of social capital. The research results are a step forward in a series of integrated studies. Third, the findings of this paper will provide new insights into the understanding of alertness, extend the theory of alertness, and demonstrate the importance of shifting conversation away from the TMT demographic variables widely used in the previous studies to deeper variables.The results of this paper will also put forward some management enlightment for enterprises. First, TMT should strive to obtain the centrality of multi-channel resources in the industry network. TMT should also learn to gain and maintain competitive advantage by utilizing network relationship strength to develop strategies that focus on synergy between external knowledge search and utilization. Second, TMT should avoid the general idea that external network relations are always beneficial, and enterprises should advocate the implementation of TMT external social capital opening strategy should not be oversimplified. Third, enterprises can provide learning guidance for TMT members, and appropriate sponsored training can help TMT develop and improve their alertness ability, bringing better performance results for enterprises.

Key words: network centrality, network relationship strength, TMT alertness, exploratory innovation