Abstract:

In 19th CPC National Congress, Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and Chinese president, pointed out that Innovation is the primary driving force behind development, it is the strategic underpinning for building a modernized economy, and highlighted the underpinning role of key generic technology breakthroughs. Generic technology play a key role in occupying a dominant position in the global industrial chain for’s manufacturing industry in China. However, generic technology R&D, which has the characteristics of long R&D period, large investment and knowledge spillovers, must be faced with the double uncertainty of technology and market. Generic technology R&D tends to fall into dilemmas of "market failure", "organizational failure", "diffusion failure" and "absence of government", which makes generic technology become unsustainable and the obstacle of industry development in China. Therefore, the research work on generic technology R&D and multiple failures with enterprises as the main body is the internal requirement of innovation-driven development and modernized economy system in China, which has an important theoretical and practical significance. However, the existing researches only discuss the certain link failure of industrial generic technology R&D process, and rarely study on the generic technology R&D failures from the generic technology R&D process perspective. Therefore, through building the analysis framework of generic technology R&D process, this paper analyzes the roots of generic technology R&D failures and reveals that the properties and regulation are two roots of R&D failures. Then, this paper analyzes the evolution dynamics of generic technology R&D behavior by building evolutionary game model. Here are main results: generic technology R&D failure is the dynamic evolution result of enterprise weigh R&D benefit. When the level of commonality of generic technology is large, it is difficult to avoid the failures of industrial generic technology R&D only depending on market mechanism. Moreover, under the market mechanism, The greater the risk and cost of R&D, the weaker the benefits exclusivity, the more difficult the subsequent commercial development, the smaller the expected benefits of generic technologies, the greater the expected benefits of other market opportunities, the lower the enterprise’s demand for generic technologies and the lower the cost of acquisition, it is easier for generic technology to produce R&D failure. Government supports are good for alleviating R&D failures. The knowledge and technology supports are more effective in alleviating R&D failures than subsidy.Based on the above findings, a theoretical framework is established from the supply and diffusion perspectives, which reveal that generic technology lies in the range from basic science to commercial applications. There is a "commonality range" with different level of commonality, which divides generic technologies into three regions. The region I represents the high level of commonality, the region III represents the low level of commonality, the region II is in between the two, the closer to the basic science (such as the region I), the more generic technology is far away from the market, the weaker the research motivation for enterprises, and the greater the probability of generic technology R&D failure. Accordingly, this paper reveals the possible multiple failures of generic technology R&D from the cause’s point of view, including the "supply failure" of risk aversion, knowledge spillover and investments alternative, the "diffusion failure" of difficult subsequent development, bad market forecast and investment alternative. The "government supports failure" may occur if government supports are not strong enough or in an inappropriate manner. Finally, this paper proposes some policy suggestions to alleviate generic technology R&D multiple failures,details are as follows:Firstly, the contingency mechanism of government support for generic technology R&D should be established. Government should provide flexible support according to the R&D strength of enterprises and the strong and weak of the level of commonality. For example, for the generic technology of region I, if the R&D strength for enterprise is strong, government should tend to give subsidy support. Instead, government should give knowledge and technology support. At the same time, government should issue the supply and diffusion policies of generic technology in order to stimulate enterprises’ intrinsic needs for generic technology and invest more innovation resources in generic technology, and then effectively alleviate the "supply failure" of risk aversion and knowledge spillover.Secondly, the aid mechanism should be designed by coordinating commonality level and subsequent development difficulty. Due to the importance of generic technology to the industrial transformation and upgrading, government should establish aid mechanisms based on the strong or weak of commonality level and the difficult or easy of subsequent development. For example, the generic technology which is located in region I and difficult to subsequent commercial development, government should not only maintain the enterprises’ supply enthusiasm but also avoid the worry of subsequent. Right now government should collaboratively provide subsidies and knowledge technology support to alleviate the"supply failure" of risk aversion and the "diffusion failure" and "supply failure" of subsequent development difficulty.Thirdly, government should cultivate market demand and environment of products based on generic technology. Although cultivating the market is the last link of generic technology R&D, but it will be good for generic technology supply, diffusion and subsequent commercial developmentdue to the good market expectations for enterprise. So cultivating market should become the policies focus. For this reason, relevant departments should regularly publish market demand and prospect forecast by entrusting authoritative agencies, and should issue relevant support policies based on the marketization of generic technology products in order to avoid the "supply failure" and "diffusion failure" of bad market expectations.In conclusion, the coordinated implementation of the above policies will also help to strengthen the enterprises’ confidence and invest innovation resources in generic technology, and stimulate good expectations of enterprises for generic technology market prospects, thereby alleviating the"government supports failures" and the "supply failure" and "diffusion failure" of investment substitution. The research results in this paper will provide guidance for clarifying the multiple failures and evolution mechanisms of generic technology R&D, and also provide reference for the government to formulate policies to alleviate multiple failures.

Key words: industrial generic technology, R&D behavior evolution, multiple failures, policy suggestion, evolutionary game theory