What are the aspects of technology spillover of multinational corporations?

Transnational corporations; Technology spillover; Monopoly advantage Since 1980s, international capital flow has become increasingly active, and direct investment has become the main way of capital flow and the main channel for developing countries to obtain external resources. In addition to increasing the capital stock of the host country, improving the investment quality and alleviating the employment pressure of the host country, another important impact of the massive entry of FDI on the host country is the spillover effect of its technology. Technology spillover effect mainly refers to the effect that domestic enterprises gradually accumulate rich knowledge, innovative technology and advanced governance experience by learning from foreign capital in the process of absorbing foreign direct investment, and enhance their competitiveness in domestic and international markets. Different from technology transfer as a transaction, spillover effect emphasizes involuntary external effects, and the result is that "local companies gain more benefits, while foreign-funded enterprises do not fully occupy the benefits brought by the overall and local efficiency improvement of host enterprises due to their entry and existence". Generally speaking, the channels of technology spillover include the correlation effect caused by the business connection between foreign capital and local enterprises; The demonstration of foreign capital to local companies attracts local companies to imitate advanced technology; Technical exchange formed by personnel flow in the host country. China has implemented the strategy of "exchanging market for technology" for 20 years, that is, on the premise of encouraging foreign-funded enterprises to export products to earn foreign exchange, it promises to sell a considerable proportion of products in the domestic market to expand the transfer and spillover effect of foreign advanced technology. This strategy was widely supported and recognized by the business and academic circles at that time, and gradually became an important theoretical basis for the relevant departments to formulate a series of foreign investment strategies and policies. However, in recent years, many empirical analyses have found that when a large number of market shares are occupied by multinational companies, the technology upgrade we get through spillover channels is not directly proportional to it, and the strategy of "exchanging market for technology" has not achieved the expected effect. On the one hand, this situation is related to the original technical level in China, the degree of competition in domestic industries, and the degree of learning efforts of local enterprises. On the other hand, it is often overlooked that multinational companies as the source of technology are not as "natural" as expected. 1. The preventive measures against multinational corporations began with the earliest monopoly advantage theory, and the role of technological advantages in international direct investment has been repeatedly mentioned: Harmo believes that the relative advantages of enterprises in various countries in technology, governance and economies of scale determine the flow and amount of direct investment, and determine whether a country is a big country in foreign direct investment or a big country in receiving direct investment; Caves (Russia) believes that the monopoly advantage of multinational corporations mainly lies in using their technological advantages to make products heterogeneous, so that multinational corporations can maintain imperfect competition and their monopoly advantage in the product market; In the internalization theory, Barclays and others emphasize that the incompleteness of the market, especially the incompleteness of intermediate products such as knowledge, will make the ownership advantage of enterprises lose or fail to play, and enterprises can get the maximum benefit from their advantages by establishing internal markets. In a word, technological advantage is the decisive factor for multinational companies to win in global competition, and whether they can maintain and monopolize this advantage largely determines the success or failure of their operations. Spillover effect, as a form of involuntary transfer, makes the outflow of technology out of the control of multinational companies, and local enterprises can acquire technology without paying the corresponding rent, which enhances their competitiveness and poses a threat to the monopoly position of multinational companies. This result of "making wedding clothes for others" obviously violates the original intention of investment. Therefore, in addition to constantly acquiring advanced technologies through innovation and accumulation, multinational corporations will inevitably take measures to effectively control these advanced technologies and prevent their leakage and overflow. (1) Technology transfer restrictions Multinational companies will generally transfer some technologies to them when they set up enterprises in the host country, which is not only the need for normal production, but also a bargaining chip for competing with enterprises in the host country. In order to make profits without losing control of technology, multinational companies will carefully choose the technology they transfer, especially if the host government restricts sole proprietorship. 1. Transfer non-core technology. Non-core technologies refer to mature technologies that do not play an important role in products and production processes, such as the operation of production lines and the assembly technology of final products. The common practice of multinational companies is to adopt the centralized operation mode of the home country: in the R&D link, the parent company is committed to basic technology research and global promotion of new products, and the subsidiary company is mainly responsible for the localization of technology; In the production process, the core production technology and key links of core components and products are mainly carried out in the home country, while the assembly production of low-tech components and products is placed abroad. 2. Transfer of relevant technologies. According to the classification of Chesbrough and Teece, technologies can be divided into two types: systematic type (which can only be produced by combining various technologies) and independent type (which is completely independent of other technologies). If multinational companies disperse system technology in subsidiaries all over the world, then a subsidiary that can't master other supporting technologies can only rely on the global scheduling of the parent company, and it is impossible for the host country enterprises to obtain complete technology and form competitiveness through spillover. MarkV Kanniess, Roger (Rong Xin) Chen and John Daniels investigated nine American IT companies investing in East Asia in 2003 (six of them invested in China). The survey results show that six enterprises have transferred non-core technology, seven enterprises have transferred non-independent technology, and four conservative enterprises have transferred both non-core technology and non-independent technology. A manager said frankly, "We must ensure that our partners in China will never come into contact with ROM coding technology. All they have to do is add this code to the computer. " (II) Patent Surrounding In June 2004, the Ministry of Commerce of China issued a warning to domestic enterprises, and was wary of multinational companies trying to outflank China with patented technology. This warning is not "alarmist". According to the investigation of the Ministry of Commerce, after 1990s, the number of patent applications filed by multinational companies in China increased by 30% annually. In many industrial fields with high technology content and strong spillover effect, patents applied by foreign investors have occupied a dominant position. For example, in the high-tech field, the proportion of foreign invention patents is: aerospace 88%, electronic information 75%. 9%, new materials and new energy 56. 5%, biomedicine 55%, other high-tech 5 1. 5%。 As we all know, patent is the legalization and institutionalization of technology monopoly, and it is a right endowed by law and can be exercised according to law. The patentee enjoys the patent right to create, use and sell the invented product within the validity period of the patented technology, and may transfer his patent to others or transfer the right to use the patent to others. Any third party who wants to use the invention to create, use or sell products must obtain the permission of the patentee in advance and pay a certain remuneration. In fact, with the intensification of competition in the world market, patent is not only a legal issue, but has gradually evolved into a new bargaining chip for enterprises' business competition strategy and game rules. Multinational companies invest huge sums of money in research and development of new products every year in order to consolidate their leading position in technology, and will never allow other enterprises to steal their own achievements for free. However, due to the small scale of domestic enterprises and low market share, it is difficult for multinational companies to solve it through legal channels, so multinational companies have adopted the method of "fishing for big fish in a long line". First, the implementation of patent layout in the mainland of China. Then, when mainland enterprises are ready to build their own brands after increasing their market share, they will file a patent lawsuit against them to recover the high patent royalties. At this time, domestic enterprises will face a dilemma, either paying high patent royalties or withdrawing from the market. Since the beginning of 2 1 century, transnational intellectual property disputes have raged in China. Patent cases similar to the DVD incident in 2002 have repeatedly sounded the alarm for domestic enterprises: with the improvement of China's intellectual property law, domestic enterprises that only stay in the simple copying stage of obtaining technology from spillover channels are likely to encounter patent sticks in the near future. Multinational companies will rely on patent monopoly technology, and then monopoly standards and markets will continue to suppress the living space of domestic enterprises. (3) In the early days when a wholly-owned multinational company entered China, due to its unfamiliarity with the China market and legal restrictions, joint venture became its main investment and operation mode. After more than ten years, multinational companies that have accumulated a lot of experience are no longer satisfied with sharing control rights with China's capital. They have increased their investment in their joint ventures in China or pressured China to increase capital and expand their shares, which has set off a wave of sole proprietorship of joint ventures. For example, P&G parted ways with Beijing No.2 Daily Chemical Factory, symbolically leaving 65,438+0% shares in a joint venture in Guangzhou; Siemens has invested heavily in a number of joint ventures in China, making its 45 joint ventures hold more than 90% of the shares. Now, in the protocol of China's accession to the WTO, the China government explicitly promised that the distribution of import and export licenses, quotas, tariff quotas or any other approval methods for imports, import rights or investment rights is not restricted by the following conditions: whether there are competitive domestic suppliers; Local content, compensation, technology transfer, export performance or research and development in China and other types of performance requirements. In this way, the trend of multinational companies entering the China market in the form of sole proprietorship is further strengthened. Since 2000, the actual amount of foreign capital utilized by wholly-owned enterprises has exceeded that of joint ventures; In 200 1 year, wholly foreign-owned enterprises accounted for more than 60% of newly established projects. There is a reason why multinational companies favor wholly-owned enterprises. According to the internalization theory, the implementation of wholly-owned holding strategy can avoid the friction and contradiction caused by the differences between the two companies in system, culture and business philosophy, so that overseas investment can better integrate into the globalization strategy. In addition, it will also help to realize the internalization of advanced technology transfer and prevent technology leakage to the maximum extent. As Hill pointed out, among all kinds of entry methods, the risks of involuntary technology diffusion are sole proprietorship, joint venture and licensing in turn. Compared with a wholly-owned enterprise, the personnel of the host country in a joint venture have more opportunities to learn and simulate technology at close range and then spread it quickly. Multinational companies with only partial ownership cannot effectively supervise these opportunistic behaviors. Therefore, even from the perspective of technology security, once government regulation is relaxed, multinational companies will have the motivation to realize sole proprietorship, reduce technology spillover, cut off the road that China hopes to acquire technology through joint ventures, widen the technology gap with China, and give full play to its strong intellectual property advantages. With the intensification of foreign investment, there are fewer and fewer Sino-foreign joint ventures, fewer and fewer platforms and carriers for technology transfer and technology spillovers, and fewer and fewer China entities undertake technology transfer and technology spillovers. Therefore, although the wholly foreign-owned enterprises will use more advanced technology in China, the technology spillover effect on the same industry in China will be greatly reduced. (4) Intra-company trade tends to lead the original supporting enterprises to the host country in order to prevent technology spillover from supporting links with local enterprises, forming a relatively closed production chain and reducing technology spillover; The other is through intra-company trade. The so-called intra-company trade refers to the international flow of products, raw materials, technologies and services within multinational corporations, which is mainly manifested in the trading activities of products, technologies and services between the parent company of multinational corporations and foreign subsidiaries and between foreign subsidiaries. The development of internal trade mainly stems from the need to save transaction costs and strengthen monopoly advantages. Transaction costs include negotiation fees, signing fees, performance of contracts, search for relevant information, etc. If trade is conducted through the market, it is very uncertain that multinational companies must negotiate and sign contracts with companies related to the host country, and also consider the influence of the host country's political and economic policies. In addition, there is information asymmetry between the two parties. In order to finalize the agreement, multinational companies may have to pay high regulatory costs. In contrast, some products, especially the company's intermediate products, equipment, technology and so on. , can be transferred within the company, saving these transaction costs. In addition, intra-company trade is an important strategy for multinational companies to expand their specific monopoly advantages on a global scale. From the technical point of view, multinational companies that monopolize advanced technology and knowledge may be copied by competitors if they put technology and intermediate input into external transactions. In order to maintain this advantage, multinational companies generally transfer intermediate products, especially core components, through internal trade. M through research, Carson found the internal export rate of industries with high research intensity (such as electronics, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, etc.). ) is higher than industries with low research intensity (such as building materials, food, textiles, etc.). ). The reason is that the former has some advantages in overseas operations that mainly rely on technology and governance, so the internalization benefits of such companies are far greater than the latter. Due to the characteristics of internal trade and its statistical difficulties, we can't get the exact figures of internal trade of foreign-invested enterprises in China, but the following simple figures are enough to let us see the huge scale of internal trade of foreign-invested enterprises in China: Since the 1990s, the import and export trade of foreign-invested enterprises has accounted for about1/2 of China's total import and export trade; The proportion of processing trade of foreign-invested enterprises in China's total import and export trade has been around 1/3; The import of equipment and related articles invested by foreign-invested enterprises has always accounted for about 65,438+0/3 of their total imports. In recent years, the specific annual figure is equivalent to 65,438+0/2 of the actual foreign investment in that year (Sun, 2004). Such large-scale internal trade not only reduces the possibility for local enterprises to acquire technology through simulation and reverse engineering of intermediate products and final products, but also makes upstream and downstream enterprises in China lose the opportunity to improve quality and technology through correlation effects. This correlation effect includes many aspects: multinational companies help future suppliers to establish production facilities, provide technical assistance or information services to improve the quality of suppliers' products or promote their innovative activities, provide or help to buy raw materials and intermediate products, provide training and organizational governance assistance, and so on. Two. Conclusion It is undeniable that the influx of foreign capital has greatly promoted China's economic development, and local enterprises have benefited a lot from the process of competing with foreign companies and learning from each other. However, we must clearly realize that as an economic entity, the profit-seeking nature will drive foreign companies to retain advanced technology to maintain their competitive advantage. Therefore, it is too optimistic to blindly believe that "the technology needed by a country can be obtained through the investment of multinational companies", and China's future technological development must be based on self-reliance.