Since the Chinese government put forward the forward-looking concept of " co-innovation ", its practical value has continued to be highlighted. However, co-innovation with comprehensive openness and deep cooperation will undermine the autonomy of enterprises' own innovation, and even undermine their existing internal innovation system, especially for those with lower discourse power in cooperation. In recent years, research has mostly focused on Co-innovation, neglecting the crucial role of internal innovation in maintaining innovation independence in enterprises. In reality, enterprises also have concerns about losing their innovation independence in the process of co-innovation. Apparently, in order to ensure the relative independence of their own innovation activities and maintain a stable development pattern,enterprises cannot ignore the important role of internal innovation. Although this issue has become a common focus of attention in the business circles, there is little systematic research to explore and answer it in depth. So should enterprises prioritize one of these two innovation activities or strike a balance between them under the premise of limited resources? Furthermore, how should enterprises choose innovation activities based on their internal and external situational factors?
Drawing on the theory of organizational ambidexterity, this paper empirically analyzes the relationship between the complementarity and balance of internal innovation and co-innovation and innovation performance, as well as the moderating effects of enterprise scale and the degree of industrial competition. The analysis is conducted based on a dataset of A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen from 2010 to 2022. The findings reveal that, firstly, while the complementarity of internal and co-innovations positively influences innovation performance, the balance of these two types of innovation activities negatively affects innovation performance. In other words, the synergistic development between internal innovation and co-innovation is beneficial to the overall innovation performance for enterprises, while the pursuit of a balance between the two types of innovation activities can lead to excessive competition for resources, which is not conducive to the improvement of innovation performance. Secondly, enterprise scale weakens the relationship between the complementarity of the two types of innovation activities and innovation performance, as well as the negative relationship between balance of the two types of innovation activities and innovation performance. It shows that there are differences in the innovation effects of the combination of two types of innovation activities between large and small enterprises. Finally, the intensity of industrial competition is found to attenuate the positive relationship between the complementarity of the two innovation activities and innovation performance. Conversely, it intensifies the negative relationship between the balance of these activities and performance. This suggests that the competitive landscape of an industry can significantly influence how internal and co-innovations interact to affect a company's innovation performance.
This paper enriches the theoretical exploration related to co-innovation. Firstly, while research has mainly discussed how both internal innovation and co-innovation are beneficial to innovation performance, it has failed to provide a clear answer to how enterprises should manage the relationship between them. This paper incorporates both internal innovation and Co-innovation into the analysis model, and discusses their relationship from two different but interrelated dimensions: complementarity and balance, as well as their impact on innovation performance. Secondly, it provides theoretical basis and practical reference for enterprises on how to better choose innovation paths in different scenarios. The enterprise scale and the degree of industrial competition are both key internal and external contextual factors mentioned in existing policies for co-innovation. Exploring how they affect the relationship between internal innovation and co-innovation and innovation performance can provide theoretical guidance for enterprises to choose appropriate innovation activities. Thirdly, existing research often explores the positive role of co-innovation, but there is little in-depth exploration of its implementation path and mechanism. This paper closely aligns with the actual needs of enterprises and explores how enterprises can manage the relationship between internal innovation and co-innovation with limited resources. It enriches the application scenarios of co-innovation theory and helps to promote the in-depth development of co-innovation.