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| Technological Diversity, Substantive Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosure and Innovation Diffusion |
| Ding Yan1,2,Miao Zhongzhen3,Ji Huanyong4,Wan Jun1 |
| (1.School of Economics and Management, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing 100876,China; 2.Unicom Online Information Technology Co., Ltd., Beijing 100032,China; 3.School of Public Management, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084,China;4.School of Economics and Management, Beijing University of Information Technology, Beijing 100092,China) |
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Abstract The widespread diffusion of technological innovation is an important manifestation for firms to obtain values and enhance their competitive advantages. Firms need to keep investment in innovation to maintain their competitive position in the rapidly changing market. It has become the focus of enterprises' technology strategy practice to break through the technological boundaries to carry out diversified R&D layouts, and obtain heterogeneous resources from different technical fields to enhance innovation capabilities and promote the level of innovation diffusion.#br#There is a paradox in existing research on the relationship between firms' technology diversity and innovation diffusion. Researches based on the perspective of strategic management believe that firms' technology diversity can help improve its innovation quality and economic value, and therefore, compared to organizations focusing on a single technology field, it can gain the recognition and adoption of its technology by different industry organizations. On the contrary, researches based on the perspective of institutional theory believe that market adopters often evaluate organizations or technologies based on established field categories, and it will cause information asymmetry between the firms and market adopters if firms investing in multiple technology fields, which in turn leads to the underestimation of firms' innovation value, and there is a risk of illegal discounts, which is not conducive to the widespread diffusion of technology. Studies have shown that both start-ups and incumbents will face the risk of illegal discounts when implementing their technology diversity strategy. The above-mentioned paradox hinders the theoretical cognition of the impact mechanism of innovation diffusion based on the perspective of a firm's innovation subject. We analyze the differences between the characteristic elements of technological diversity and corporate organizational factors to reveal the reasons for the existence of the paradox, and then conduct an in-depth discussion on the relationship between firms' technological diversity and innovation diffusion.#br#According to the characteristic element difference, the firms' technology diversity can be divided into related technological diversity and unrelated technological diversity. The former refers to the diversification of the firm's technology distribution in related fields; the latter refers to the diversification of the firm's technology distribution in unrelated fields. Although the unrelated technological diversity can promote the improvement of firm's innovation level, it also increases the cost of R&D and operation management, and further makes it difficult for market adopters to effectively identify and evaluate the value of the firms. However, the existing literature on innovation diffusion usually takes technological diversity as a whole concept to explore its impact on innovation diffusion. It is not conducive to analyzing the complex relationship between technological diversity and innovation diffusion, which may be an important reason for the aforementioned paradox.#br#Based on the analysis of contingency theory, the relationship between corporate technological diversity and innovation diffusion may be affected by internal and external factors within the organization. Recent studies on innovation diffusion point out that information asymmetry usually occur in innovation diffusion, especially in emerging markets, and corporate signaling is an effective means to deal with this problem. According to the signaling theory, signal transmission can reduce the information asymmetry between firms and market adopters because of technological diversity, thereby promoting the diffusion of innovation, but the relationship is not discussed in depth.#br#〖HJ*2/7〗This article first measures the related and unrelated technological diversity based on existing research, and explores their heterogeneous impact on innovation diffusion. It further combines recent research with signal transmission theory, takes the substantive corporate social responsibility disclosure as a typical organization signal transmission and explores its moderating effect on the above-mentioned relationships. Drawing on R&D-intensive firms listed in Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges from 2008 to 2017, it shows that(1) related technological diversity positively affects innovation diffusion; (2) the impact of unrelated technological diversity on innovation diffusion has a lagging effect; (3) substantive corporate social responsibility disclosure positively moderates the relationship between unrelated technological diversity and innovation diffusion.#br#This study uses the difference analysis method to distinguish and test the differential influence mechanism of the two types of firm's technological diversity on innovation diffusion. It further integrates signal transmission theory into innovation diffusion research and enriches theoretical research on the impact mechanism of innovation diffusion, and provides empirical basis for firms' innovation practice.#br#
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Received: 07 April 2021
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