Stakeholder network for developing open innovation practice of China's manufacturing enterprises

Area of Science:

• Business Administration
• Innovation Management
• Network Science

Background:

• Open innovation performance is crucial for firm competitiveness.
• Understanding stakeholder network dynamics is key to fostering innovation.
• Existing research often overlooks the nuanced impact of network characteristics.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how stakeholder network characteristics influence a company's open innovation performance.
• To examine the moderating role of absorptive capacity in this relationship.
• To provide empirical evidence for building national and industry innovation ecologies.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of panel data from 1507 Chinese listed manufacturing firms (2008-2018).
• Econometric modeling to assess the impact of network centrality, stability, size, and density.
• Investigation of moderating effects of absorptive capacity, technology levels, and firm types.

Main Results:

• Network centrality, stability, and size show positive or inverted U-shaped relationships with open innovation performance.
• Stakeholder network density does not significantly affect open innovation performance.
• Absorptive capacity moderates the inverted U-shaped relationships, particularly for firms with higher technology levels.

Conclusions:

• Strategic management of stakeholder networks is vital for enhancing open innovation.
• Firms should cultivate specific network characteristics to optimize innovation output.
• Policy implications include fostering innovation networks to promote firm-level innovation performance.