Transformations  in
Business & Economics

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ENTERPRISE TECHNOLOGICAL DIVERSIFICATION AND TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION PERFORMANCE: MODERATING ROLE OF INTERNAL RESOURCES AND EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENT DYNAMICS¹
Junshu Du, Shaofeng Peng, Wei Song, Jisheng Peng

ABSTRACT. The extant literature has revealed mixed findings of the relationship between technological diversification and technological innovation performance (TIP). Using the panel data of 417 high-tech listed companies from 2010 to 2018 in Growth Enterprise Market and SME Boards in China, this paper analyses the effect of related technological diversification (RTD) and unrelated technological diversification (UTD) on TIP through negative binomial fixed effects regression method and examines the contingency of internal resources and environmental dynamism. Results show that RTD can help enterprises strengthen the R&D capabilities in relevant technical fields and improve TIP. An inverted U-type relationship is also evident between UTD and TIP. That is, the increase in the degree of UTD gradually increases TIP at first, but the latter declines when the degree of UTD reaches beyond a certain extent. In addition, the technical, marketing, and capital resources within an enterprise play a positive moderating role, which helps enterprises to carry out R&D that is related to RTD and UTD. External environment dynamism exhibits a negative moderating effect. Increasing uncertainty of the technical environment and the changing of the customer's demands weaken the effect of RTD and UTD on innovation performance. The study conclusions provide theoretical guidance for companies to formulate strategies for technological diversification, comprehensively utilize internal resources, and strengthen external environmental scanning to improve technological innovation performance .

KEYWORDS:  technological diversification, firm resources, environmental dynamism, technological innovation performance.

JEL classification:  M21, O32, O33, C12.

Acknowledgment:  This study was supported by the Humanity and Social Science Youth Foundation (No.CXRS201804Q) & Key Research Base of Humanities and Social Sciences (No. KYPT201901R) of Changzhou College of Information Technology, the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.71672083), Social Science Foundation of Hunan Province, China (No.16YBQ045), Research Foundation of Education Department of Hunan Province, China (No.18B030) and 2019 high-end training for teachers' professional leaders in higher vocational colleges in Jiangsu Province (2019TDFX001).