PDF(1060 KB)
Innovative living water comes from its source: A study about customer-company relationships and corporate innovation
Cui Dengfeng, Li Jinxiu, Wang Haizhong
Science Research Management ›› 2026, Vol. 47 ›› Issue (6) : 152-161.
PDF(1060 KB)
PDF(1060 KB)
Innovative living water comes from its source: A study about customer-company relationships and corporate innovation
Innovation is the core driving force behind corporate development. Although the notion that “meeting customer needs is the key to successful corporate innovation” is widely accepted, there remains a lack of in-depth research on how customers influence corporate innovation. To address this gap, this paper examined the impact of customer-firm relationships on corporate innovation and its underlying mechanisms using data from A-share listed companies in China from 2015 to 2022. The study matched customer data with company data and employed empirical analysis to explore this relationship. The findings were as follows: (1) Customer-company relationships significantly promote corporate innovation by increasing expected market returns, reducing innovation risks, and alleviating financing constraints. (2) Heterogeneity analysis reveals that the effect is stronger in firms with high customer dependency, state-owned enterprises, high-tech industries, and regions with strong intellectual property protection. (3) Further investigation into the “effectiveness” of the relationship shows that customer-company relationships can be sustainably transformed into a driving force for corporate innovation when they interact with the firm’s innovation capabilities. The overall synergistic effect is positive, and the dynamic marginal effect follows a trend of first increasing, then decreasing, and finally increasing again. The conclusions of this study will provide important insights for company to be demand-oriented and leverage the inexhaustible resource of customer relationships to achieve high-quality innovation.
customer-company relationships / corporate innovation / expected market return / innovation risk / financing constraint
| [1] |
孙早, 宗睿. 本土需求与企业自主创新:为何合理的收入分配更有利于企业创新[J]. 财经研究, 2022, 48(3):94-108.
|
| [2] |
吕铁, 黄娅娜. 消费需求引致的企业创新:来自中国家电行业的证据[J]. 经济管理, 2021, 43(7):25-43.
|
| [3] |
|
| [4] |
刘德胜, 谢明磊, 张鲁秀. 关系作为中小企业创新资源的来源:客户共创的中介效应[J]. 科研管理, 2022, 43(11):134-142.
|
| [5] |
康健, 谢先雄, 赵敏娟. 客户关系集中度、企业生命周期与持续性创新[J]. 统计与决策, 2023, 39(15):183-188.
|
| [6] |
|
| [7] |
|
| [8] |
肖静华, 吴瑶, 刘意, 等. 消费者数据化参与的研发创新:企业与消费者协同演化视角的双案例研究[J]. 管理世界, 2018, 34(8):154-173+192.
|
| [9] |
符加林, 张依梦, 闫艳玲, 等. 顾客契合与企业创新绩效:价值共创和创新氛围的作用[J]. 科研管理, 2022, 43(11):93-102.
|
| [10] |
张克英, 吴晓曼, 李仰东. 顾企互动对服务创新及企业绩效的影响研究[J]. 科研管理, 2018, 39(11):69-78.
|
| [11] |
孙建鑫, 马宝龙. 顾客参与、治理机制和科技型中小企业创新绩效:基于渠道战略匹配理论的组态研究[J]. 经济与管理研究, 2023, 44(9):125-144.
|
| [12] |
The fundamental conclusion of this paper is that technological progress is intimately dependent on economic phenomena. The evidence suggests that society may indeed affect the allocation of inventive resources through the market mechanism somewhat as it affects the allocation of economic resources generally. If this is true, then technological progress is not an independent cause of socio-economic change, and an interpretation of history as largely the attempt of mankind to catch up to new technology is a distorted one. Cultural lags undoubtedly exist in social history. The automobile—to use an obvious example—rendered obsolete many pre-existing social arrangements and behavior patterns. But the reverse is also true. New goods and new techniques are unlikely to appear, and to enter the life of society without a pre-existing,—albeit possibly only latent—demand. Even a longstanding demand may have been intensified shortly before a technique to satisfy it is invented. In addition to cultural lag, there exists technological lag—a chronic tendency of technology to lag behind demand.
|
| [13] |
董晓舟, 陈信康. 关系投资、顾客感恩与关系绩效[J]. 经济经纬, 2018, 35(5):101-107.
|
| [14] |
黎文飞, 唐清泉. 政府行为的不确定抑制了企业创新吗?:基于地方财政行为波动的视角[J]. 经济管理, 2015, 37(8):45-54.
|
| [15] |
|
| [16] |
|
| [17] |
安素霞, 王磊, 王智韬. 客户盈余表现对供应商企业创新投资的影响研究[J]. 审计与经济研究, 2022, 37(3):95-106.
|
| [18] |
孙薇, 叶初升. 政府采购何以牵动企业创新:兼论需求侧政策“拉力”与供给侧政策“推力”的协同[J]. 中国工业经济, 2023(1):95-113.
|
| [19] |
|
| [20] |
|
| [21] |
There is a growing body of evidence that customer satisfaction is predictive of firms’ future financial performance. However, studies of this relationship have been limited to competitive markets, and monopolistic markets have been largely ignored. This study explores the large and important utilities market and exploits its unique regulatory requirements that generate detailed and reliable operating and accounting data to examine the overall relationship between customer satisfaction and utility profit and establish the causal mechanisms involved. Using data from U.S. public utility firms, the authors show that even when customer satisfaction does not affect future revenues, it does positively predict future profitability by reducing utility firm operating costs. More specifically, they find that higher satisfaction reduces the costs of utility firm distribution, customer service, and sales and general administration expenses. These findings and additional post hoc evidence are consistent with the notion that customer satisfaction (1) generates efficiency-enhancing benefits for utility firms by lowering the direct and employee engagement costs of dealing with dissatisfied customers and (2) fosters greater trust and cooperation from customers. This study has important implications for both managers and regulators and provides important new insights for market-based asset theory and regulatory economic theory.
|
| [22] |
Although scholars have established that customer satisfaction affects different dimensions of firm financial performance, a managerially important but overlooked aspect is its effect on a firm’s future cost of selling (COS), that is, expenditures associated with persuading customers and providing convenience to them. Accordingly, this study presents the first empirical and theoretical examination of the impact of customer satisfaction on future COS. The authors propose that while higher customer satisfaction can lower future COS, the degree to which a firm realizes this benefit depends on its strategy and operating environment. Analyzing almost two decades of data from 128 firms, the authors find that customer satisfaction has a statistically and economically significant negative effect on future COS. While the negative effect of customer satisfaction on future COS is weaker for firms with higher capital intensity and financial leverage, this effect is stronger for more diversified firms and for firms operating in industries with higher growth and labor intensity. The authors also find that these effects may vary across two components of COS, cost of persuasion and convenience.
|
| [23] |
操友根, 任声策, 杜梅. 专利诉讼、高管团队创新注意力与企业创新:基于诉讼事件属性的二次调节作用[J]. 科研管理, 2024, 45(2):189-199.
|
| [24] |
|
| [25] |
邵剑兵, 袁东旭. 高校技术独董对企业创新的影响研究:来自高新技术企业的证据[J]. 外国经济与管理, 2024, 46(2):103-118.
|
| [26] |
|
| [27] |
肖红军, 沈洪涛, 周艳坤. 客户企业数字化、供应商企业ESG表现与供应链可持续发展[J]. 经济研究, 2024, 59(3):54-73.
|
| [28] |
王玉泽, 罗能生, 刘文彬. 什么样的杠杆率有利于企业创新[J]. 中国工业经济, 2019(3):138-155.
|
| [29] |
刘惠好, 陈梦洁, 焦文妞. “去杠杆”政策之于国有企业创新效率:抑制还是促进[J]. 经济管理, 2023, 45(11):68-88.
|
| [30] |
宋渊洋, 陈正一, 阎海峰. 数字化转型能降低企业对大客户的依赖吗?[J]. 管理评论, 2024, 36(2):130-142.
|
| [31] |
杨金玉, 彭秋萍, 葛震霆. 数字化转型的客户传染效应:供应商创新视角[J]. 中国工业经济, 2022(8):156-174.
|
| [32] |
乔明哲, 张玉利, 张璇, 等. 公司创业投资、防护机制对创业企业技术创新绩效的影响研究[J]. 管理学报, 2024, 21(7):1023-1033.
针对公司创业投资（CVC）可能产生的影响和创业企业的潜在防护机制提出研究假设，基于2009~2020年深圳创业板上市公司专利申请数据进行了实证检验，研究显示：①CVC与创业企业技术创新绩效之间显著负相关；②CVC持股比例与创业企业技术创新绩效之间存在着显著的U形关系；③双方业务相关性对CVC持股比例与创业企业技术绩效之间的关系并无显著的调节效应，企业年龄和知识产权保护强度对上述关系存在着显著的调节效应。
Based on related literature, hypotheses about influence of CVC and the potential defense mechanisms of new ventures were developed, and empirically tested by patent application data of listed firms from Shenzhen Growth Enterprise Market from year 2009 to 2020. The results indicate that: ①there is a significant negative correlation between CVC and new ventures’ technological innovation performance; ②there is a significant U-shape curvilinear relationship between CVC shareholding ratios and new ventures’ technological innovation performance; ③business relevance between investors and new ventures do not moderate the relationship between CVC shareholding ratios and new ventures’ technological innovation performance, while firm age and intensity of intellectual property protection have moderation effects on the above relationship.
|
| [33] |
Innovation and risk are inseparable. In fact, literature on innovation management often recommends that innovation-oriented firms must actively monitor, evaluate, analyze and treat future events in order to mitigate risks whenever possible. This approach is particularly important in emergent economies characterized by unstructured national innovation systems and constant economic and market instability. However, there has been no systematic effort to identify and categorize risks that potentially impact businesses based on innovation. Thus, we propose an interpretative framework of risk events with potential financial impact in innovation-oriented firms constructed and tested by means of a mixed studies review. The risk events were identified through a comprehensive systematic search and review of the published literature on risk and innovation. From the 115 works that were analyzed, it was possible to identify nine categories of risk events frequently associated with innovation-oriented businesses that may generate financial impacts. The proposed interpretative framework was tested in an empirical study with 13 innovation-oriented firms located in six Brazilian technological parks. Results from the empirical study suggest that managers found the proposed interpretative framework complete and comprehensive. Moreover, the empirical study signaled which risk events are more relevant for the Brazilian context. The proposed framework is a first necessary step for future development of ERM models applicable in innovation-intensive contexts.
|
| [34] |
杨林, 和欣, 顾红芳. 高管团队经验、动态能力与企业战略突变:管理自主权的调节效应[J]. 管理世界, 2020, 36(6):168-188+201+252.
|
/
| 〈 |
|
〉 |
