Science Research Management

Science Research Management ›› 2021, Vol. 42 ›› Issue (5): 31-38.

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A research on the driving pattern of innovation in China enterprises′ internationalization

Xie Xianda1,2, Cheng Cong3   

  1. 1. School of Management, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou 310023, Zhejiang, China; 
    2. Zhijiang College, Zhejiang University of Technology, Shaoxing 312030, Zhejiang, China; 
    3. China Institute for Small and Medium Enterprises, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou 310023, Zhejiang, China
  • Received:2019-03-01 Revised:2019-07-13 Online:2021-05-20 Published:2021-05-19

Abstract:      The number of China′s enterprises taking internationalization strategy has shown rapid growth. However, compared with the investment efficiency of the major foreign direct investment enterprises in the world, the foreign direct investment of Chinese enterprises is still at a low level, which is reflected in the company′s ability to enhance innovation through internationalization strategies. The effect is not obvious. At the same time, due to the different goals of Chinese enterprises in implementing the international catch-up strategy, they have significant differences in the implementation of innovation strategies. Based on the review of international enterprise innovation related research, this paper proposes three hypothetical elements of the enterprise internationalization process innovation model: innovation motivation, resource matching and adaptability. It is considered that the combination of these three elements forms different configurations of the international innovation mode.
    The study used the Yangtze River Delta as a sample source, conducted in-depth investigations of some enterprises engaged in international operations in the region, and visited 51 research samples, and then used qualitative comparative analysis methods to innovate in their internationalization process. The decision-making model was analyzed to identify the antecedent conditional configuration that determines the effectiveness of innovation in the process of internationalization of Chinese enterprises. In the research, we set the consistency threshold of innovation results in the process of enterprise internationalization to not less than 0.8, and obtained the initial antecedent conditional configuration, ie complex solution, of innovation satisfaction and dissatisfaction in the process of enterprise internationalization. After that, combined with the three types of driving factors of innovative behavior in the process of internationalization of Chinese enterprises, the simple conditions of counterfactual preconditions are set, and the simple and counterfactual analysis and the difficult fact analysis are used to obtain the simple solution and the optimal solution. When a variable appears in both the concise solution and the optimization solution, it is recorded as a core condition; if the variable appears only in the optimization solution and does not appear in the concise solution, it is recorded as an edge condition.
    The research show that because enterprises have significant differences in the combination of factors such as innovation motivation, resource matching and adaptability, the innovation decisions in the process of internationalization of Chinese enterprises can be divided into five modes. We define a mature market-driven innovation model that attaches great importance to soft resource matching and industrial chain integrity requirements, and an emerging market-driven innovation model that emphasizes hard resource matching, and attaches importance to technology and management advantages in enterprise internationalization, while attaching importance to the soft resource matching is called the internal driving innovation mode. It is called the speculative market-driven innovation mode, which emphasizes the internationalization style of enterprise executives and the matching problem of enterprise soft resources. These research conclusions are a complete exposition of the innovation mechanism in the process of internationalization of Chinese enterprises, which has rich theoretical significance, and also has a good practical enlightenment significance for how Chinese enterprises implement innovative decision-making suitable for the internationalization strategy of enterprises according to their own situations.
    At the end of the paper, the limitations of this study are explained. The main limitations are as follows: Firstly, due to the limitation of the detailed data, the data of this paper is mainly based on the subjective judgment of the executives responsible for international operations. The role of executives in subjective emotional factors in corporate judgment makes the research data subjectively biased. In addition, although this paper analyzes the innovation strategy in the internationalization of enterprises from the perspectives of internationalization motivation, resource matching and adaptability, it still has certain limitations. In the future, it may be necessary to further explore this from the perspectives of system and culture mechanism. Finally, the data in this paper mainly comes from the Yangtze River Delta region, which makes the application of the antecedent conditions of this paper restricted, which needs further study in the future research.

Key words:  enterprises′ , internationalization, innovation pattern, QCA