In September 2015, Michael Lynch, distinguished professor of the Department of Science& Technology Studies of Cornell University, visited Tsinghua University. Prof. Lynch was the former president (2007-2009) of the Society for the Social Studies of Science (4S) and former editor of the flagship journal in STS, Social Studies of Science (3S). After Prof. Lynch successfully completed a series of lectures on ‘Life Science and Society’ in the First Tsinghua STS Workshop hosted by the Institute of Science, Technology and Society of Tsinghua University, we had an in-depth interview with him. Having had an over 35-year academic career associated with STS, Prof. Lynch had a comprehensive overview towards the Status Quo of STS. He shared many special experiences and depicted a clear picture of the past of STS. From a professional perspective, Prof. Lynch also frankly discuss the future of STS, giving insightful suggestions for the new generation of STS researchers.
In order to figure out the progress of Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) Policy Studies in China from an international perspective, this paper took an integrated scientometric analysis on both the STI Policy publications, the SciSIP programs in the United States, the SciREX programs in Japan, and the research projects granted by National Natural Science Foundation of China between 2011 and 2017. The Science of Science Policy in the United States aims to advance the scientific basis of science and innovation policy, while the Science of Science, Technology and Innovation Policy in Japan appears to take the science of STI policy into a framework of disciplines construction. The "Science of STI Policy" program consists of the following: 1) Preparation of a promoting system (Steering Committee) of "SciREX", 2) Promoting mission-oriented investigation and research, 3) Funding for R&D projects, 4) Foundation of hub institutions for fundamental researches and human resource development, and 5) Development of data and information infrastructure. The development of China's science of STI policy could consider the experiences from both US and Japan. We suggest to strengthen the interdisciplinary integrated STI policy studies between social sciences and natural sciences. It is necessary to initiative a specific STI policy R&D funding mechanism and a systematic communication mechanism between policy researchers and policy makers in China. We proposed that the data and information infrastructure act as a basic and strategic task in developing China’s Science of STI Policy.
The development of information and communication technologies have made modern scientific research organizations seem more and more networked and virtualized.After analysizing the important connotation of virtual science research organization this paper concludes that modern science research organizations have five characteristics:the research goals are same,researchers are complementary,the architectures are flexible,the resources are shared,the intellectual property rights are not clear.Then basing on the STS critical perspective,this paper points out that virtual research organizations have three problems:it will intensify the hierarchical trend of science community,it lacks the mechanism of institutional organization management,and it brings some new social problems.It is very important to construct good external development environment for our virtual research organizations according to the above problems.
As a far-reaching disruptive technology, the Internet technology has initiated a significant change of production system. This article uses the production function as the basic analytical framework, and try to analyze the characteristics and causes of the production rules of the Internet age. The result shows that first of all the Internet technology initiates the change of production technology conditions, as "digitalization of arbitrary objects and information", "universal connection of arbitrary information" and "storage and calculation of massive information" become the general production conditions. Under this production conditions, essential productive factors is becoming virtualized, and big data as the new essential production factor; large-scale networked collaboration is becoming the new production organization model. Finally new changes take place in input-output relationship, productivity is significantly increased. New production functions are generated, and open the new era of subversion of industrial system. Grasping the characteristics of new production function of the Internet Age is of great importance for our country to promote economic development and promote supply side reform under the background of new economic normality.
Based on the Network-DEA model, this paper figures out each province’s “Technology-Finance” system efficiency from 1996 to 2014. After analyzing the features of the time dimension and space dimension, we establish the two-step GMM model to test the system environment and infrastructure’s local effects and also set the spatial Durbin model to test the spatial spillover effects. The results show that from 1996 to 2014, the overall efficiency is significantly arising and highly spatial dependent. The system environment and infrastructure can both promote the efficiency when not considering the spatial factors. However, after adding the spatial factor into the model, the results note that the direct and spillover effects of infrastructure are still significantly positive, while the direct effect of system environment is not significant and the spillover effect is significantly negative. This result of system environment may caused by the regional imbalance development.
This paper examines the impact of science-finance development on the R&D investment of firms, by using listed companies as the sample. The results show that: There is a significant positive correlation between science-finance development and R&D investment of firms. The influence channel of science-finance development on the R&D investment of firms is innovation financial constrains releasing, product market competition effect and non innovation financing effect. The R&D investment motivation effect of science-finance development is more obvious in firms with high R&D investment intensive.
In this paper, we examine performance differences between new ventures led by returnees and those led by locals. We find that returnees have negative effect on venture performance, while knowledge capital measured by the education level of legal representative and R&D investment can mitigate the negative effect caused by “liability of foreignness”.
This paper applies organizational ambidexterity theory to network embeddedness research field and puts forward the concept of dual network embeddedness ambidexterity. Then it empirically explores the effect of dual network embeddedness ambidexterity on returnee entrepreneurial performance and the moderating role of absorptive capability and policy environment. Based on survey data from 177 returnee entrepreneurial firms in Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta, empirical research results indicate that the combined ambidexterity and fitted ambidexterity of local network and oversea network both have significantly positive effect on the returnee entrepreneurial performance. Moreover, absorptive capability and policy environment both have significant negative moderating role on the relationship between the combined ambidexterity of local network and oversea network and returnee entrepreneurial performance while significantly positively moderate the relationship between the fitted ambidexterity of local network and oversea network and returnee entrepreneurial performance. The research results have important implications for the research field of organization ambidexterity and network embeddedness and the growth practice of returnee entrepreneurial firms.
There exists a quite big difference in R&D strategy between enterprises with high degree of product diversification and ones with a single product, which may influence the performance of the subsidy policy. Under this background, using the data of the non-financial listed companies consecutive trading for eight years from 2008 to 2015 on the Shanghai Stock Exchange and the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, this article studies the impact of China's R&D subsidy policy on corporate R&D investment, and whether the product diversification affects the performance of the R&D subsidy policy. The empirical results show that higher the degree of enterprise product diversification is, worse the performance of R&D subsidy will be. It enlightens us that in order to improve the overall performance of R&D subsidy policy, we should reduce the subsidy for enterprises with high degree of product diversification. The result can help to scientifically and rationally develop R&D subsidy policy.
To compete internationally with firms from developed counties, many Chinese firms perceive the need for improving their innovation capabilities. Recently, more and more Chinese companies have tried catching up by pursuing cross-border merger and acquisitions (CBMA). Prior research has focused on acquirers from developed countries, as they dominated cross-border M&A transactions in the last century. Further research is needed to examine cross-border M&As by acquirers from Emerging Market (EM). This study used the CBMA data from China to investigate if their acquisition experience will influence post-acquisition innovation performance. In particular, the paper focus on knowledge transfer and knowledge integration within the acquiring firms. EM Firms will try to use CBMA to be more internationalization. This study will be helpful for EM firms as it can help the firms to better understand the risk during the CBMA so as to achieve their strategy target.
The theoretical divergence of dynamic capabilities lies the differences affecting on competitive advantage directly or indirectly. Organizational routine is the core of dynamic capabilities, exploring the relationship with competitive advantage is very important for resolving the theoretical divergences. Because of the complexity and abstraction of organizational routines, the research of exploring the derivative paths of competitive advantage from organizational routines perspective is rare. In this paper, on the basis of revealing the nature and derivative mechanism of organizational routines, we explored the relationship between organizational routines renewing and competitive advantage under different levels of environmental uncertainty. The empirical results show that: organizational routines renewing is the result of organizational learning. In the low dynamic environment, organizational routines renewing have a positive impact on competitive advantage. But in the high dynamic environment, revising organizational routines does not significantly affect the competitive advantage; creating organizational routines will have a negative impact on the competitive advantage. At this time, dynamic capability is not the direct source of the competitive advantage.
The trend of networking of collaborative innovation among industries, universities and research institutes influences knowledge exchange, sharing and integration among such organizations. Therefore, the research on the mechanism of impact of network embeddedness on I-U-R knowledge collaboration is more and more important. Our research, based on the network embeddedness theory, intends to construct a conceptual model in which four factors influence one another like network embeddedness, knowledge search, I-U-R cooperative behavior, and I-U-R knowledge collaboration performance. Supposing knowledge search and I-U-R cooperative behavior as the meditation variables, we testify our research through extensive questionnaires and data analysis and come to the main conclusions as below. Firstly, the network embeddedness reveals a distinctive positive effect on the I-U-P knowledge collaboration performance. Next, the knowledge search and I-U-R cooperative behavior shows a completely meditation effect between the trust and I-U-R knowledge collaboration performance, but a partly meditation effect between the other three factors of network embeddedness and I-U-P knowledge collaboration performance. It is expected that both theoretical and empirical study in this research can broaden the research on network embeddedness and deepen the theoretical scope of I-U-R knowledge collaboration.
Although design has been taken as another driving force in enterprise`s innovation in recent studies besides technology push and market pull, there has little research effort to explain the interactive effects between three driving forces on exploratory and exploitative innovations of enterprises. Drawing on the Resource-based View, this study investigates the joint effects of technological capabilities, market capabilities and design capabilities on exploratory and exploitative innovations in Technological Small and Micro Enterprises (TSMEs) based on the two-stage data collected from 357 TSMEs operating in Foshan in Guangdong Province. The results indicate that the interaction between technological and market capabilities both has a significant positive influence on exploratory innovations and exploitative innovations in TSMEs. In addition, technological and design capabilities have a significant positive joint effect on exploratory innovations, and market and design capabilities have a significant positive joint effect on exploitative innovations in TSMEs. Moreover, the results of the three-way interaction testing suggest that technological capabilities, market capabilities and design capabilities only have complementary effect on exploratory innovations instead on exploitative innovations. The findings underscore the difference of interactive effects between three capabilities on exploratory and exploitative innovations, which generates new insights for the coupling model of innovation.
The existence of enterprise specific investment and transfer of the professional knowledge ownership, can induce opportunism behavior between enterprises in the process of collaborative innovation. And the opportunism behavior of either party would damage to the relationship between enterprises. In this paper, from the perspective of service dominant logic, on the basis of transaction cost theory and organizational relations theory, with the questionnaire survey of the 182 KIBS enterprises collaborative innovation project data, the empirical analysis to explore the reciprocity influence of the opportunism behavior between enterprises, and analyses the governance mechanisms of the contract governance, relationship governance for opportunism behavior and the reciprocity. Conclusion shows that the reciprocity of opportunism behavior exist in the process of collaborative innovation; Contract governance, relationship governance and its interactive will directly inhibit enterprise opportunism behavior; The common influence of contract governance and relationship governance can restrain the reciprocity of opportunism behavior between enterprises, but the inhibition influence varies with the combination between the two.
From the perspective of the integration, this paper attempts to analyze the operation mechanism of creative crowdsourcing processes using idealized method and case analysis method. Through carding and summarizing the existing research achievements, the concepts and contents of crowdsourcing process, principal part and the objection as well as the characteristics of the creative structure are defined. Then, according to these characteristics, a creative content structure framework including two dimensions is proposed to classify the different creative crowdsourcing processes. Futhermore, different selection modes and integration mechanisms on creative crowdsourcing processes are designed and a conceptual model diagram is proposed. Finally, real cases are selected to be analyzed. This paper provides a valuable reference for overall rule design of creative crowdsourcing in real world and several enlightenments for the further study on crowdsourcing processes.
