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Does Intellectual Property Protection Promote the Improvement of the Quality of Enterprise Innovation? Quasi-Natural Experiments from National Intellectual Property Demonstration Cities#br# #br# LIANG Ran , WEN Xueguo , ZHU Siwei , XIA Yiqun 2024, 45(03): 3-20.  Abstract ( 60 )   Innovation is the core driver of leading development, and promoting high-quality economic development must elevate the issue of IPR protection to a national strategic level. As a typical combination of IPR protection policies, the pilot policy of model cities for IPR protection makes up for the shortcomings of the IPR protection mechanism, stimulates the innovation vitality of enterprises, and accelerates the transformation of scientific and technological achievements. Observing Chinese A-share listed enterprises from 2007 to 2020, the asymptotic DID model is constructed to examine the impact of IPR protection on enterprise innovation quality in a quasi-natural experiment with IPR demonstration cities, which effectively avoids the interference of other influencing factors on the estimation results. For the measurement of enterprise innovation quality, patent cited data and patent knowledge width are used as proxy variables for enterprise innovation quality, which effectively reduces the error of indirectly measuring innovation quality using patent quantity measurement. The study results show that, on the one hand, the pilot policy of IPR demonstration cities has a significant positive impact on the innovation quality of enterprises, and the estimation results using the OLS model and FE model are non-differential. The event study method results indicate that the impact of the pilot policy of IP demonstration cities on the quality of corporate innovation satisfies the parallel trend hypothesis, and the impact of the pilot policy on the quality of corporate innovation shows an increasing trend from year to year. The main regression results remain significantly positive after a series of robustness tests such as the placebo test, instrumental variables, replacing the explanatory variables, excluding the interference of other policies, and controlling for the time trend term. On the other hand, based on the analysis of institutional change theory and externality theory, it is found that IPR protection has a positive impact on the quality of enterprise innovation mainly through two transmission paths, namely, stimulating enterprises' substantive technological innovation and optimizing resource allocation efficiency. First, the pilot policy of intellectual property protection provides enterprises with an excellent institutional environment and perfect judicial protection, which effectively stimulates enterprises to launch substantive technological innovation and positively impacts the quality of enterprise innovation. Second, the pilot policy of intellectual property protection provides an excellent macro environment for enterprises to introduce high-technology talents and high-technology-rich capital, which helps enterprises adjust the allocation efficiency of innovation factors and positively impacts the quality of innovation. In addition, the heterogeneity analysis finds that the nature of firm ownership and the administrative level of the city have heterogeneous effects on the quality of innovation of firms affected by IPR protection. First, from the perspective of enterprise ownership, the impact effect of IPR protection policy is more beneficial to improve the technological innovation quality of non-state-owned enterprises compared to state-owned enterprises; second, from the perspective of heterogeneity of administrative level and function of cities, the policy only improves the innovation quality of enterprises in cities with high administrative level compared to enterprises in general cities. Based on this, implementing the construction of a robust IP strategy, promoting high-quality development of technological innovation, and forming a high-quality IP governance system need to pay attention not only to the driving role of institutional policies but also to the stimulating effect of incentive policies on the endogenous motivation of enterprises for high-quality development. Finally, there are still points for further research on this topic due to the space limitation. On the one hand, the study on the path mechanism of intellectual property protection inhibiting enterprise innovation has not been empirically tested. On the other hand, there is a lack of examining the impact of IPR protection on enterprise innovation quality based on the perspective of the knowledge spillover effect. Therefore, examining the research on the potential inhibitory paths of IPR protection on enterprise technological innovation and the relationship between IPR protection and enterprise innovation activities based on the technology spillover effect is an important direction to focus on in the future. References | Related Articles | Metrics

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The Impact of Technology-Organization-Environment factors Linkage on Digital Innovation of Internet Enterprises: Fuzzy Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis and Necessary Condition Analysis Based on TOE Framework#br# ZHANG Ming, ZENG Jing, ZENG Na, WANG Dongling 2024, 45(03): 21-40.  Abstract ( 71 )   As the source of the digital economy, digital innovation has become an important strategic tool to generate new drivers and promote high-quality economic development. How to optimize the enterprise digital innovation mechanism and improve the level of enterprise digital innovation is an important problem. However, existing researches mostly focus on the influence of a single factor on digital innovation, which is lacking of an integrated framework to systematically analyze the mechanism of digital innovation, and also neglect to discuss the synergistic effect between multiple factors. To further explore the influence mechanism of digital innovation and promote the practice of digital innovation, the "2020 top 100 innovative enterprises of digital economy" published by Internet Weekly as the initial basis for case sample screening, this study finally obtained 20 internet enterprises listed in Shanghai and Shenzhen A-shares. With the help of TOE theoretical framework, the study used fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis and necessary condition analysis method to explore the joint effect of five antecedent conditions at three levels of technology-organization-environment on the digital innovation of internet enterprise. The conclusions are as follows: (1) There are no necessary conditions for high-level digital innovation. That is, a single condition does not constitute the bottleneck of high- or low-level digital innovation. (2) The driving mechanism of high-level digital innovation is divided into four recipes: namely, technology and environment synergy with big data capability empowered (H1), technology and environment synergy with innovative capability supported (H2a), technology and environment synergy with big data capability and innovative capability joint supported (H2b), absorptive capacity and digital context dual-wheel driven (H3). Each configuration is composed of multiple antecedent conditions, i.e., "multiple concurrency". Different combinations of antecedent conditions lead to different configurations, which can achieve high-level digital innovation, i.e., "all roads lead to the same destination". (3) There are four configurations that result in not-high level digital innovation. Among them, configuration NH1a has high innovative capability, but lacks digital infrastructure, big data capability and absorptive capacity. NH1b has high innovative capability and digital context, but lack of digital infrastructure and absorptive capacity. NH2a has a high absorptive capacity, but the other four conditions are deficient. NH2b has high digital infrastructure, big data capability and absorptive capacity, while the other two conditions are lacking. There is causal asymmetry between the driving mechanism of the four not-high configuration and high-level digital innovation. The following management implications can be drawn. Firstly, to achieve a high-level digital innovation, internet enterprises should pay attention to the coordination and improvement of various capabilities, and the thinking should shift from "local optimization" to "configuration coordination". For example, when internet enterprises have high level digital infrastructure, they should combine the digital context and enhance the innovative capability in a targeted way. Secondly, managers need to choose the digital innovation path according to their own conditions, which is suitable for the enterprise's resource endowment and external environment. Thirdly, internet enterprises should closely combine with the actual situation of China's digital economy and make good use of the basic resources of external environment. References | Related Articles | Metrics

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Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Health and Entrepreneurial Performance of New Ventures: An Empirical Study Based on E-commerce Enterprises in Zeguo Township#br# CAI Xiaojin , LIU Qingquan , YANG Xiaohuan , SHI Yang 2024, 45(03): 41-56.  Abstract ( 42 )   In recent years, the flourishing development of the digital economy has been effectively promoting the comprehensive revitalization of rural areas. The emergence of Taobao villages and Taobao towns is an important manifestation of this. Therefore, the impact mechanism between the rural e-commerce entrepreneurial ecosystem and new ventures has become a key issue. The entrepreneurial ecosystem is an interactive system composed of entrepreneurial entities and their surrounding environment. The entrepreneurial ecosystem has characteristics such as multi-level hierarchy, diversity, interactive symbiosis, and dynamic evolution. According to the multi-level hierarchy of the entrepreneurial ecosystem, it can be divided into three levels: micro, meso, and macro levels, with the micro level referring to the entrepreneurial ecosystem explored from the perspective of enterprises. Based on the multi-level and complex nature of the entrepreneurial ecosystem, focusing on the smaller but representative micro-level entrepreneurial ecosystem is a method to deal with the complexity of the entrepreneurial ecosystem and has more representative significance for new ventures. Although existing literature has explored the constituent elements and key participants of the entrepreneurial ecosystem, it still falls short in explaining the competitiveness of the entrepreneurial ecosystem and the performance of new ventures within it. More and more studies point out the crucial role of ecosystem health in the sustainable development process of the system, and the premise for the ecosystem to play a role in resource allocation is that the system is healthy. Due to the insufficient initial endowment and relatively scarce resources of new ventures, they mostly achieve development through entrepreneurial bricolage. The entrepreneurial ecosystem can provide new ventures with more abundant entrepreneurial opportunities and resources. New ventures can use the ecosystem to solve resource bottlenecks and legitimacy gaps, and enhance their competitiveness and performance by interacting with other entities in the system and surrounding environments through dependence, value sharing, and collaborative evolution, further promoting the evolution of the entrepreneurial ecosystem. From the perspective of micro-level enterprises, based on the analysis and understanding of entrepreneurial ecosystem theory and entrepreneurial bricolage theory, the entrepreneurial ecosystem health is divided into three dimensions: ecological vitality, ecological stability, and ecological diversity. Based on the research logic of "environment perception - behavior - result," a theoretical model of "entrepreneurial ecosystem health - entrepreneurial bricolage-new venture entrepreneurial performance" is constructed. Using a questionnaire survey method, this study takes e-commerce enterprises in the rural e-commerce entrepreneurship ecosystem of Zeguo Town as the research object. Statistical analysis software SPSS 22.0 and AMOS 24.0 were used to conduct reliability and validity tests on the collected sample data of 605 e-commerce enterprises. A structural equation model was constructed to test the hypotheses. The empirical results show: (1) Ecosystem stability and ecosystem diversity in the entrepreneurial ecosystem have a positive impact on new venture entrepreneurial performance; (2) Entrepreneurial bricolage has a positive impact on new venture entrepreneurial performance; (3) Ecological vitality and ecological diversity in the entrepreneurial ecosystem have a positive impact on entrepreneurial bricolage; (4) Entrepreneurial bricolage plays a mediating role between ecological vitality and new venture entrepreneurial performance, and between ecological diversity and new venture entrepreneurial performance. However, the mediating effect between ecological stability and new venture entrepreneurial performance is not significant. The research conclusions hold implications for new ventures on how to use entrepreneurial bricolage strategies to overcome the "newborn weakness" faced by new ventures, thus achieving survival and development from the perspective of entrepreneurial ecosystem health. References | Related Articles | Metrics

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Technological Mergers and Acquisitions, Internal R&D Network Reconstruction, and Firm Exploratory Innovation. #br# ZHANG Guiyang, LI Xinxin, ZHOU Xiaohu 2024, 45(03): 57-73.  Abstract ( 43 )   Accelerating the innovative development of high-end equipment manufacturing industry is crucial for speeding up the construction of a modern economic system and supporting high-quality economic development, among other things. Currently, China's high-end equipment manufacturing industry is still in the middle and lower reaches of the global industrial chain, lacking corresponding dominance, and facing "bottleneck" technical predicaments in key areas, which urgently need to improve exploratory innovation. Due to the cognitive lock-in of R&D personnel, it is difficult forfirms to continuously explore technology based on internal knowledge, and the efficient acquisition of external technology is key to improving the performance of exploratory innovation. Technological mergers and acquisitions, as an important cooperative innovation strategy and external technology acquisition strategy, have received widespread attention from both industry and academia. Whether technological mergers and acquisitions can lead to exploratory innovation depends on two points: first, there are novel recombination opportunities between the technologies of the merging parties; second, the merged firm can effectively integrate the technology of the target firm. Current research on technological mergers and acquisitions is limited to the quantity and quality of technology acquisition, neglecting the dynamic process of post-merger internal and external technology recombination. According to the recombination innovation theory, the matching characteristics of technology are key factors affecting the novelty and integration difficulty of post-merger technology recombination between the two parties. Technological proximity emphasizes that while the technological foundations of both parties are relevant in a broad field, they also allow for differences in specific technical fields, thus potentially enhancing the novelty of technology recombination while reducing the difficulty of technology integration. The reconstruction of the internal R&D network may be one of the important mechanisms by which technological mergers and acquisitions impact exploratory innovation, but how it is quantified and empirically validated as a mediation mechanism is still not clear. Moreover, the dynamic reconstruction of cooperation networks has distinct path dependence and self-reinforcing features, and different structural features of previous networks may affect the degree of reconstruction of internal cooperation networks. This study aims to construct a moderated mediation effect model to empirically test the process mechanism of how technological proximity between the merging parties affects the exploratory innovation of the merged firm. Based on multiple matching data such as technological mergers and acquisitions, invention patents, and financial information of 253 high-end equipment manufacturing industries from 2013 to 2017, the negative binomial regression model is used for empirical testing. The study found that: (1) The technological proximity of the merging parties positively influences the exploratory innovation performance after the merger by promoting the reconstruction of the internal R&D network of the merged firm; (2) Degree centrality negatively moderates the relationship between technological proximity and the reconstruction of the internal R&D network; (3) Network clustering coefficient strengthens the negative moderating effect of degree centrality. Heterogeneity analysis shows that: (1) Technological proximity does not significantly impact post-merger exploratory innovation in firms with strong profitability and adequate R&D investment; (2) The mediating effect of the reconstruction of the internal R&D network is not significant in technology mergers and acquisitions led by state-owned enterprises; (3) The moderating effects of degree centrality and network clustering coefficient are stronger in technology mergers and acquisitions led by mature firms. A comparison with exploitation innovation reveals that the reconstruction of the internal R&D network is a unique mechanism through which the technological proximity of the merging parties impacts the exploratory innovation of the merged firm. In response to this, this article further discusses possible reasons from perspectives such as resource constraints, network inertia, and ambidextrous learning. The theoretical contribution of this article can be summarized from two aspects: First, the measurement index based on patent variables improves the precision of statistical analysis of technological matching characteristics between the merging parties. Second, through the introduction of a dynamic network perspective and an internal corporate viewpoint, it is revealed how technological mergers and acquisitions influence the process mechanism of exploratory innovation within a firm. Based on the research findings, it is recommended that high-end equipment manufacturing firms in China should: First, select targets for technological mergers and acquisitions that have similar technological strategies and foundations; Second, dynamically allocate internal R&D teams and strengthen communication and cooperation between new and old employees; Third, adopt decentralization and eliminate "clique" culture, promoting cross-team collaborative innovation. References | Related Articles | Metrics

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Systematic Review on the Evaluation of New Energy Vehicle Industry Policy Effect#br# ZHENG Ailin , LIU Shuo , LAN Hailin 2024, 45(03): 74-89.  Abstract ( 44 )   The focus of the debate on the effect of industrial policy from all walks of life nowadays is not limited to the problem itself, but to the boundary of the effect of industrial policy. The new energy vehicle industry is a hot area of policy formulation in various countries, and scholars have conducted bountiful research on the evaluation of policy effect. However, as well as the evaluation of policy effect research in other area, there are also fragmented and incomparable research dilemmas in the fields of new energy vehicle industry. Seeking research breakthroughs from methodological innovation on the causes of the differences of the evaluation results of industrial policy is of great significance to promote policy evaluation theory and improve the content of industrial policy. It is particularly urgent to systemically sort out the current complex evaluation elements and find out a deeper explanation for the debate of conclusion of the evaluation of policy effect. The systematic review method optimizes the deviation of literature identification, selection and conclusion through the critical secondary analysis of existing research results to achieve in-depth analysis of specific topics. The method is used to collect articles whose research theme is the evaluation of policy effect on the new energy vehicle industry from 2009 to 2020 from Web of Science. After removing irrelevant data, 175 articles are obtained as research samples. According to the framework of the policy evaluation system and the basic relationship between the evaluation elements from the existing research, the samples are sorted out. The components of evaluation system of the policy effect on the new energy vehicle industry are identified, and the causes of the different conclusions on the evaluation of policy effect are discussed based on the research results. Adopting control variable method, the study compares the impact of different evaluation element and specific evaluation element on the conclusion of evaluation of policy effect one by one. The evaluation standard include the standard of the fact dimension (efficiency, efficiency, adequacy) and the standard of the value dimension(fairness, responsiveness, adaptability);The evaluation environment includes four categories: political environment, economic environment, social environment and technological environment; The evaluation subjects includes stakeholders and independent third parties; The evaluation object includes supply side policy tools (tax relief for producers subsidies, production subsidies, emission standards, industrial planning, etc.) and demand side policy tools (tax relief for consumers, purchase subsidies, government purchases, privileges of using, subsidies of using, etc.);The evaluation method includes qualitative evaluation methods and quantitative evaluation methods. The evaluation model includes positivism, constructivism and critical positivism. Each evaluation element has its impact on the evaluation results and specific evaluation element does its job to the diverse conclusions of the evaluation of policy effect. The following conclusions are drawn: (1) The elements of the evaluation of policy effect on the new energy vehicle industry can be classified into six categories: evaluation standard, evaluation environment, evaluation subject, evaluation object, evaluation method, and evaluation model. (2) The difference in the combination of evaluation factors is an important reason for the different conclusions of the evaluation of policy effect on the new energy vehicle industry. The evaluation model is the "strategic deployment" of the evaluation. Once determined, the selection of other evaluation elements is restricted. The numerous combinations of specific evaluation element have an effect on the difference of evaluation conclusions. The application of this methodology provides a new research idea to solve the dilemma of the evaluation of policy effect, and promotes the optimization of evaluation of policy effect on the new energy industry; To the evaluation system, it provides a research perspective for exploring the boundary where industrial policies work. References | Related Articles | Metrics

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Open Participation and Open Source Software Project Performance: An Openness Paradox Perspective#br# GUO Hai , LI Xiaoyu , HUANG Ran 2024, 45(03): 90-111.  Abstract ( 51 )   As a unique form of open innovation, the development of open source software（OSS）differs fundamentally from conventional software development and other open innovation activities with fixed procedures, practices and organizers: It allows entities to join voluntarily, innovate autonomously, and operate independently. Consequently, open participation not only facilitates rapid external knowledge acquisition for OSS projects but also subjects them to a significant burden of knowledge absorption. As awareness of the OSS landscape increases, research in the vein has recognized this 'double-edged sword' effect of open participation, but still lacks a holistic theoretical framework to explain it. In addition, scholars fail to systematically consider the multiple dimensions of open participation and clarify the impact of project governance mechanisms on the consequence of open participation. It is imperative to develop a systematic theoretical system to explore the impact of different types of open participation dialectically and comprehensively. Therefore, by adopting the openness paradox perspective and the knowledge base view, the impact mechanism of open participation in OSS projects is framed as a contest between knowledge acquisition and knowledge absorption. On this basis, this study considers the dual facets of open participation, namely breadth and depth, and analyze their diverse effects on the performance of OSS projects. Furthermore, this research places emphasis on the license agreement, a pivotal governance mechanism, to explore its contingent effects within the aforementioned relationships. This study takes 409 OSS projects on the GitHub platform as samples. Following the open innovation research, the breadth of open participation is measured by the number of participants, and the depth of open participation is measured by the number of core participants who are deeply integrated into the software development process. The restrictiveness of licenses is a coding based on type. The performance of OSS projects is measured by their number of downloads. The negative binomial regression model is used to conduct empirical analysis. The empirical results show that the breadth of open participation has an inverted U-shaped relationship with project performance. The influx of participants initially triggers an increase in performance but leads to a decrease after exceeding the threshold. In contrast, the depth of open participation has a U-shaped relationship with project performance. The increase of core participants initially causes a decrease in performance, but leads to an increase after exceeding the threshold. In addition, restrictive licenses reinforce the inverted U-shaped relationship between open participation breadth and project performance. By demonstrating the norms, intentions and preferences, the projects with restrictive licenses can attract more intrinsically motivated participants and motivate them to actively engage in software development. Consequently, such projects experience rapid knowledge acquisition gains in the early stages of breadth growth but face escalating knowledge absorption pressures in the later stages. The managerial implications mainly focus on two aspects. First, for OSS development teams, attracting ordinary contributors is undoubtedly important, but cultivating core contributors holds greater strategic significance. The latter's coordinating function should be leveraged to ensure the project operates orderly and alleviate the pressure of knowledge absorption. Additionally, it is vital to recognize the implicit governance function of license agreements. They can convey a project's values and production model and thus impact the composition of participators and potential knowledge contributions. Second, for open source community operators, boosting the visibility and interaction of core contributors is necessary. Related initiatives contribute to developing a layered organization operational model and elevating the coordination willingness and effectiveness of core contributors in its wake. References | Related Articles | Metrics

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Does Ecology Exist within Enterprises: A Case Study on Internal Marketization Scenarios from the Perspective of Eco-Business Model Interaction#br# SHI Wenhua , RAN Hua , HOU Hong 2024, 45(03): 112-130.  Abstract ( 21 )   In the current theoretical research field, the concept of "endoecology" is no longer unfamiliar. However, in the field of management research, ecological metaphors are still widely used in the study of inter-organizational relations, but the application of ecological constructs in the context of organizations is lacking in in-depth discussion, which makes the theoretical meaning of "endoecology" ambiguous. This study focuses on whether the theoretical connotation of ecological coevolution can be applied in the context of organizations, and focuses on the interaction process among internal ecological members.At present, many enterprises are trying market-oriented practices that focus on the interaction between internal members and simplify the complex cause and effect of internal and external interactions. Therefore, this scenario can be selected to conduct a detailed study on the vertical case of internal marketization of a customer service department of an enterprise from the perspective of ecology-business model interaction. It also studies in what organizational environment and how to carry out internal marketization. This paper chooses the case study method to build the internal marketization evolution mechanism model by studying the internal marketization evolution process of a company's customer service from 2019 to 2021. The results show that internal marketization does not repeat transactions according to the given structure, but reflects the dynamic characteristics of the iterative evolution of business models. The dynamic process can be described as the change of three business model elements: value proposition, core resource capability and pricing model. Like the external market, its good operation cannot be separated from a series of institutional support, and the market environment and its changes also create conditions for the evolution process. In this process, the characteristics of the internal organizational environment are consistent with the theoretical description of ecology in the view of ecological co-evolution, and the behavior characteristics of the internal organizational members are consistent with the description of the subjective characteristics of the members in the literature. The practice of headquarters exerting influence but not directly controlling is consistent with the description of the ancillary characteristics of the relationship in the literature; The strategy-mediated connection between internal and external environments conforms to the description of the characteristics of open exchange in the literature, verifies the possible existence of endoecology and clarifies the boundary conditions for its existence. Therefore, on the one hand, it is possible to integrate the related studies of endoecology and exoecology into the common theoretical perspective; On the other hand, before inclusion, it is necessary to check whether the internal selection environment conforms to the three major characteristics of member subjectivity, relationship attachment and boundary openness, which in turn depend on specific environmental factors and corporate strategic choices. In addition, the theoretical contribution of this paper is also reflected in two aspects. On the one hand, this paper challenges the underlying assumption that ecology must lie outside the boundaries of the firm, thus broadening the boundary conditions of ecological research. The future ecological research needs to study the internal and external ecology as a whole. By verifying the effectiveness of two cross-organizational boundary concepts (ecosystem and business model) in the context of the organization, it echoes the trend in the literature to dilute the internal and external boundaries of the organization. On the other hand, this study enriches the emerging perspective of eco-business model interaction in the literature. It expands the framework for understanding business models from the perspective of ecology-business model interaction, further taps the subjective initiative of ecological subjects, expands the scope of business model-related dynamics from the perspective of ecology-business model interaction, and enriches the ecological enabling mechanism from the perspective of ecology-business model interaction. This study opens up a novel application scenario for the ecology-business model interaction perspective: internal marketization. The advantage of this perspective lies in its systematic and dynamic investigation of internal marketization behavior. In addition, this paper only selects one enterprise to carry out a case study, which leads to certain limitations of the selected samples. Whether the conclusions obtained are universal in other industries and fields needs to be further verified. Therefore, further application of this perspective in this context needs to be further explored in the future. References | Related Articles | Metrics

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The Impact of Institutional Contexts, Social Network and Entrepreneurial Learning on Farmers' E-commerce Entrepreneurial Decision: A Configurational Perspective#br# LUO Wei, CHEN Wei 2024, 45(03): 131-146.  Abstract ( 45 )   Farmers' e-commerce entrepreneurship, as an important part of the development of rural e-commerce, has had a positive impact in promoting the modernization of agriculture and rural areas, and integrating development of rural the primary, secondary and tertiary industries. How to promote the active participation of the majority of farmers in e-commerce entrepreneurship has also become an important issue of concern in the practice and research of rural revitalization. Although existing studies have discussed the influence of macro-environmental and micro-individual level factors on the decision-making of e-commerce entrepreneurship of farmers, most of them have neglected the important fact of synergistic effect between multi-level factors. Therefore, this paper explores the question of how multi-level factors synergistically influence farmers' e-commerce entrepreneurial decisions in the context of rural revitalization and the actual situation of rural e-commerce development. First, based on deductive logic, this paper follows the research framework of the cross-cultural cognitive model, and combines institutional theory, social network theory and entrepreneurial learning theory to divide the elements proposed in the model at a finer granularity, so as to construct a configurational research framework for e-commerce entrepreneurship among farmers. Subsequently, 547 cases of e-commerce entrepreneurship decision-making of farmers with different outcomes were collected through semi-structured interviews and questionnaires. Finally, the complex driving mechanism of the multi-dimensional elements of institutional environment, social network and entrepreneurial learning on farmers' e-commerce decision-making was analyzed from the configurational perspective by using the combined research method of necessary condition analysis (NCA) and qualitative comparative analysis (QCA). The results show that, firstly, no single factor constitutes a necessary condition for farmers to participate in the decision-making of e-commerce entrepreneurship. Secondly, there are three decision-making paths to promote farmers' participation in e-commerce entrepreneurship, namely, the following entrepreneurship path under institution-driven with network scale-support, the innovative entrepreneurship path under institution-helping with integrated network-support, and the leading entrepreneurship path under institution-driven with dual network-support. Additionally, compared to the other two paths, the first path that namely the following entrepreneurship path under institution-driven with network scale-support is more likely to effectively activate farmers' e-commerce entrepreneurial decisions. Thirdly, two types of configurational paths, which named as cognitive dimension and entrepreneurial learning deprivation, and social network deprivation could lead farmers to make decisions to refuse to participate in e-commerce entrepreneurship. Based on the above results, this paper proposes three practical paths to promote farmers' participation in e-commerce entrepreneurship by building a good institutional environment for rural e-commerce entrepreneurship, guiding farmers to reasonably choose their own form of entrepreneurial learning, and building an e-commerce eco-industry chain for rural revitalization through the collaboration of multiple subjects. The theoretical contributions are as follows: first, the introduction of the configurational research method into the study of farmers' e-commerce entrepreneurship problems is both an attempt to apply an emerging research methodology and a systematic test of previous studies; secondly, the combination of NCA and QCA is used to analyze the necessary and sufficient causal relationships between multi-level factors and different e-commerce entrepreneurial decisions of farmers, which enriches the study of farmers' e-commerce entrepreneurial behaviors; thirdly, the complex influence mechanism of multi-level factors on farmers' e-commerce entrepreneurship decisions is explored based on the configurational perspective, which is of great theoretical significance for revealing the multifaceted paths to stimulate farmers' e-commerce entrepreneurship motivation. References | Related Articles | Metrics

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Study on Paths to High Level Servitization of Manufacturing Firms: Based on Method of fsQCA and Database of Chinese Listed Manufacturing Firms#br# ZHANG Jun , ZHU Jiantao , WANG Jingjing , ZU Ming 2024, 45(03): 147-167.  Abstract ( 61 )   Manufacturing servitization is one of the important approaches for a manufacturing firm to get out of development dilemma. High level of servitization, which refers to the manufacturing firms in the "product" as the core to "product+service" as the core of the servitization process, more emphasis on manufacturing firms to provide products andservices integration solutions of the differences and/or value-added development stage and state. It will help a manufacturer to solve the problem caused by homogeneous competition via providing users with additional firm-specific value. However, the problem of which factors and how do their interactions to help a manufacturing firm achieve high level servitization is still unanswered. The extant literature has focused more attention on how a manufacturer's internal resources and capabilities influence the manufacturer to achieve high level of servilization with ignorance of the effect of the environmental factors. Moreover, most studies made efforts to identify the "net effect" of each of a manufacturer's internal factors on high level of servitization. However, as known to all, most phenomenon are the results of multiple factors' interaction. So does the high level of servitization for a manufacturer. In order to understand the phenomena of how high level of servitization to be achieved, and explore the causality complexity effectively, the research adopts a holistic view and the method of fuzz-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to explore the antecedent configurations influencing a manufacturer to realize high level of servitization. Specifically, based on literature review and theoretical deduction, a manufacturer's internal and external factors were identified firstly. Data of Chinese listed manufacturers from CSMAR database was collected and 592 cases were maintained. Using fsQCA, which is known as its salient advantage in analyzing cause-effect relationship between the interaction of multiple factors and a specific result as it uses the thinking of set analysis of sufficient and necessary conditions, the antecedent configurations of high level of servitization of manufacturers were proposed. This research finds that, none of the internal or external factors is the necessary condition for achieving high level of servitization. It is the conjunction of internal and external factors that leads manufacturing firms to realize high level of servitization sufficiently, and there are three antecedent configurations for manufacturers' realization of high level of servitization. According to different drivers to promote a manufacturer to implement servitization, the three antecedent configurations can be further clustered into two categories, namely, configuration of opportunity-pulling and those of competition-pushing, the latter include a configuration of competence-based and a configuration of resource-aided-competence-based. The fundamental role of dynamic capabilities, which include absorptive capacity and flexibility of human resources, has been found in all the three antecedent configurations for high level of servitization in manufacturers. "Market experience" and "redundant resource" are alternatives of each other. What's more, the three antecedent configurations of non-high level of servitization of manufacturing firms are generally characterized by lack of external pressure and power, and insufficient internal organizational capacity (absorptive capacity, human resource flexibility). In this situation, even if there are some redundant resources or senior executives, manufacturing firms show the result of non-high level of servitization due to lack of "talent for resource deployment". It further verified that the driving force of the above high level of servitization is mainly the opportunity-pulling and the driving force caused by competitive pressure brought by the industry development space in the environment, and further indicated that if the competitive pressure and development space of the external industry are insufficient, even if the firm has sufficient redundant resources, it will not be possible for a manufacturing firm to realize high level of servitization. Findings of this study contributes the theory of manufacturing companies' servitization by identifying two drivers and three antecedent configurations of high level of servitization in a holistic framework integrating a manufacturer's internal and external factors, which may give an effective interpretation for the complexity of causality in servitisation. Additionally, to improve the measurement validity of the construct of "servitization", new measurement of "servitization" by considering the width of servitization and depth of servitization as a whole has been developed. The future research can further use the multi period and multi linear growth QCA method to analyze and compare the difference of configuration solutions in each key period during the development of the research object, so as to obtain the dynamic and evolutionary regular pattern in the process of manufacturing firm servitization development.  References | Related Articles | Metrics

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Research on the Evolution Characteristics of Enterprise Ecosystem Based on Employee Entrepreneurship: Evidence from Alibaba#br# MA Rongkang, ZHAO Miaolei 2024, 45(03): 168-188.  Abstract ( 35 )   In recent years, employees from mature enterprises starting their own businesses is becoming a more and more common phenomenon in various industries. Founders and investors with work experience in the same mature enterprise often accumulate similar resources like technical knowledge, field experience, capital resources, social connections and so on. Thus, they could establish connections based on their previous work experience, and gradually forming a micro-level entrepreneurial ecosystem with mature enterprises as the core enterprise, enterprises or investment institutions founded by those employees as the inner core participants, and external entities as the outer opportunity space. Then, what is the essence of the enterprise ecosystem based on employee entrepreneurship? What are the structural characteristics of such an ecosystem based on employee entrepreneurship from mature enterprises? And how do these characteristics evolve over time? This research aims to answer these questions. Firstly, by reviewing the literature, this research draws on the subsidiary view component of the integrated framework of the ecosystem research perspective to construct a conceptual model of enterprise ecosystem based on three levels of core enterprise-inner core participants-outer opportunity space. Then, this research establishes an analysis framework for the evolution characteristics of the enterprise ecosystem from four ecosystem-specific dimensions: participant heterogeneity, ecosystem output, participant interdependence and non-contractual governance. Finally, the research uses quantitative statistical analysis, and selects Alibaba, whose employee entrepreneurship phenomenon and ecological characteristics are significant, as the research object, and uses descriptive statistics to summarize the evolutionary characteristics of the enterprise ecosystem from 1999 to 2020 and summarizes the patterns of change between structural characteristics in relation to the stages of development of the ecosystem. The research results show that the startups in the ecosystem benefit from the growth of the core firm, and this growth is reflected in the evolution of the structural characteristics of each dimension of the ecosystem: in the birth stage, the ecosystem has high role heterogeneity and middle attribute heterogeneity, which makes the output of the ecosystem show a low level, so the degree of internal interdependence is relatively weak, and the non-contractual governance ability with internal as the governance center is not strong; in the expansion stage, the heterogeneity of attributes increases, which drives the level of output to increase, thereby increasing the internal interdependence and improving the non-contractual governance capacity accordingly; in the leadership stage, the attribute heterogeneity of the participants increases, which leads to the improvement of the output capacity, but the growth rate slows down, the degree of dependence between the internal participants also tends to weaken, the non-contractual governance ability is no longer improved; in the self-renewal stage, the stable participant heterogeneity makes the output level of the system into a bottleneck, the dependence between internal participants decreases, and the level of non-contractual governance also decreases accordingly. References | Related Articles | Metrics

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Green Effect of Public Experience: CEO Public Environmental Protection Experience Diversity and Enterprise Green Technology Innovation#br# LING Hongcheng, YANG Zhen, XU Ruiqian, CHEN Jin 2024, 45(03): 189-210.  Abstract ( 92 )   Since the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the "Two Mountains Theory" has received unprecedented attention from the Party Central Committee and governments at all levels. The report of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China further proposed to build a market-oriented green technology innovation system. In the new development stage, how to drive the green economic transformation and the high-quality development of micro enterprises has become the only way to realize ecological civilization and build a powerful country with scientific and technological innovation. Enterprise green technology innovation conforms to the new development concept of innovation and green. How to drive enterprise green technology innovation has become a hot research topic in academic circles. The existing research shows a great degree of neglect of executive sustainable oriented and strategy driven green innovation decision-making from the perspective of strategic decision-making. Based on the research sample of A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen from 2007 to 2017, this paper empirically analyzes the impact of CEO public environmental protection experience diversity on enterprise green technology innovation and its internal impact mechanism. On the one hand, expand the research sample of green technology innovation, build a large sample of enterprise green technology innovation based on the perspective of enterprise green patents, comprehensively investigate the impact of CEO's diversity of public environmental protection experience on enterprise green technology innovation from the perspective of senior executives' strategic decision-making, and enrich the bias of existing research on enterprise green innovation measurement or the drawbacks of too narrow sample. On the other hand, it enriches the antecedents of enterprise green technology innovation from the perspective of strategic decision-making, constructs the theoretical logic transmission framework of "senior executives' sustainable orientation - corporate social responsibility - enterprise green technology innovation", and further enriches the traditional research on the driving effect of external institutional legitimacy pressure on enterprise green technology innovation from the perspective of organizational institutionalism. The research finds that: (1) CEO's diversity of public environmental protection experience has a significant driving effect on corporate green technology innovation; (2) The results of the transmission mechanism test show that corporate social responsibility and environmental protection investment have a partial intermediary effect between the diversity of CEO's public environmental protection experience and corporate green technology innovation; (3) The results of the regulation effect test show that the restrictive government regulation and the incentive government regulation in the external environmental regulation produce the substitution effect and the synergistic complementary effect respectively between the diversity of CEO's public environmental protection experience and the enterprise's green technology innovation; (4) The results of heterogeneity analysis show that the diversity of CEO's public environmental protection experience has more obvious driving effect on green technology innovation of technology intensive enterprises, large-scale enterprises and non-state-owned enterprises. The policy and management implications of the study mainly focus on two levels. First, for enterprises, they attach great importance to the strategic value of green transformation and green innovation in the new development stage. In this process, they need to effectively promote the transformation of traditional innovation system to green technology innovation system with sustainable strategic orientation from the strategic decision-making level of senior executives, optimize the construction of enterprise green innovation management system, and give better play to the strategic decision-making value of strategic decision-makers under the principal-agent problem. Secondly, the sustainable orientation of enterprises is an important cognitive basis for the transformation of the enterprise innovation system to a green oriented sustainable innovation system. Under the background of the unprecedented strengthening of green development oriented regulation in the current external institutional environment, enterprises need to pay more attention to the concept of green environmental value creation for stakeholders. Second, for the government, the external system can better play the role of regulation, guidance and governance of enterprise green technology innovation. For the negative environmental problems arising from the negative corporate social responsibility practices or the production and operation of enterprises, it is necessary to strengthen the construction of the negative list system of environmental regulation, give play to the binding effect of external formal systems and regulations, and rely more on the government environmental subsidies under industrial policies for the positive behavior of enterprises to carry out green innovation to generate environmental value, the construction of sustainable incentive mechanism for green technology innovation of enterprises is realized by policy incentives under the government. References | Related Articles | Metrics