Keywords: small and medium-sized enterprises; Cooperative innovation; Risk analysis; risk control
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In recent years, domestic small and medium-sized enterprises have developed rapidly, especially in economically developed areas, and their role in economic development has become more and more prominent. However, small and medium-sized enterprises generally have problems such as small business scale, weak R&D ability, single product variety, narrow financing channels, insufficient innovation funds and poor anti-risk ability. Faced with increasing global business competition, increasing innovation cost and increasing innovation difficulty, it is usually difficult for small and medium-sized enterprises to complete technological and technological innovation alone. In order to gain market competitive advantage and increase market share, small and medium-sized enterprises must establish different forms of strategic cooperation alliances, share various resources, give full play to their respective advantages and implement cooperative innovation. Cooperative innovation refers to the joint innovation behavior between enterprises or between enterprises, scientific research institutions and universities. It realizes resource sharing, shortens the innovation cycle and reduces the innovation cost through complementary advantages, thus enhancing the innovation ability of enterprises. It has become the main way for SMEs to innovate.
Cooperative innovation usually requires two or more participants, which leads enterprises to face many inevitable risks in cooperative innovation. If cooperative enterprises do not fully realize these risks and control them in time, they may fall into a very passive situation, which will make the investment in cooperative innovation exceed the income, and even lead to the breakdown of cooperation, resulting in huge economic and social losses. Therefore, it is of great theoretical and practical significance for the sustainable development of small and medium-sized enterprises to analyze the risks related to cooperative innovation and put forward corresponding control measures.
On the cooperative innovation of enterprises, many scholars have done a lot of theoretical and empirical research, such as Cowan put forward the basic model of cooperative innovation; Wang Zhong and others analyzed the intellectual property risks in cooperative innovation and their prevention. Su Shibin and others studied the intellectual property risks brought by media transfer in cooperative innovation. Su Shibin and others used the risk matrix to study the risk of tacit knowledge transfer in cooperative innovation. Yang Jianjun and others have established a comprehensive evaluation system for selecting cooperative innovation partners; Shan Yingjie studied the "prisoner's dilemma" of cooperative innovation of supply chain node enterprises; Su Shibin and others studied the intellectual property risk caused by tacit knowledge transfer in cooperative innovation and its preventive countermeasures; Zhai Yunkai and others analyzed the risk of knowledge transfer in cooperative innovation. However, these studies do not involve the risk control of cooperative innovation. At present, there are few research reports in this field, and even less research on small and medium-sized enterprises.
Based on the above background, this paper tries to analyze the risks of cooperative innovation of small and medium-sized enterprises by using the theory of enterprise innovation and information asymmetry, and puts forward corresponding risk control methods or measures to provide decision-making basis for the implementation and development of cooperative innovation of small and medium-sized enterprises.
1
Risk analysis of cooperative innovation of small and medium-sized enterprises
In real economic life, SMEs choose cooperative innovation mainly because the benefits of cooperative innovation are greater than independent innovation, which can be expressed by the following formula:
Ic-βCs-Ci>ls-Cs
( 1)
In the formula (1), Is is the benefit of independent innovation, Cs is the cost of independent innovation, Ic is the benefit of cooperative innovation, β is the cost factor shared by cooperative innovation, and Ct is the transaction cost of cooperative innovation.
The cooperative innovation among small and medium-sized enterprises is based on "mutual trust", but the formula (1) does not consider the influence of information asymmetry. Rational enterprises' pursuit of maximizing their own profits will lead to the increase of other risk costs. For example, cooperative innovation enterprises only consider the relevant cooperative innovation costs in the formula (1), which will inevitably exaggerate the benefits of cooperative innovation. Therefore. When deciding whether to participate in cooperative innovation, rational enterprises should consider the related risks that may be caused by the partners' pursuit of maximizing their own interests under asymmetric information, that is, in the formula (1), the risk cost Cf of cooperative innovation should be considered, that is, the basic conditions for enterprises to participate in cooperative innovation are:
Ic-βCs-Ct-Cf>Is-Cs
The related risks of cooperative innovation of SMEs can be summarized as follows.
1. 1
Trust, reputation and loyalty risks among cooperative enterprises
The cooperative innovation of small and medium-sized enterprises is based on the complementary advantages and resources of all partners, and the sharing of advantages and resources among members is very important. The sharing and flow of resources is beneficial to the interests of the whole cooperative alliance and cooperative members, but it will harm the interests of resource owners themselves. In fact, every enterprise is an independent interest subject and will constantly pursue the maximization of its own interests. Due to the asymmetry of information, when the interests of all partners are not completely consistent, it is easy to generate trust risks, doubt each other's sincerity in cooperation, and dynamically observe each other's cooperation intentions. Small and medium-sized enterprises are generally inferior to large enterprises in all aspects, and only after the other party takes practical actions will they invest in cooperation measures. If you encounter speculative partners, the stability of cooperative innovation alliance will be worse, and the possibility of cooperation failure is great.
Cooperative loyalty risk refers to the possibility of incomplete cooperation of cooperative innovation enterprises and the uncertainty of technological innovation cooperation caused by it. The reasons for this risk are as follows: First, small and medium-sized quality of enterprise is not high, lacking long-term consideration and paying attention to short-term interests; Secondly, the lack of communication, mutual trust and negative cooperative attitude among partners make the cooperative innovation alliance virtual; Three, irresistible external factors (such as political environment, economic and financial policies, natural disasters, etc.). ) leads to the decrease of enterprise loyalty, which leads to the lack of confidence in cooperative innovation and makes the work difficult to carry out.
1.2 technical and financial risks
Small and medium-sized enterprises are small in scale, weak in R&D ability, poor in technological advancement and maturity, and few in originality. When establishing cooperative innovation alliance, all parties bear the risk of outdated technology. Taking equipment as an example, the service life of materials is usually longer than that of technology and economy, and the payback period and investment effect coefficient can not meet the industry standards or requirements. In addition, SMEs are generally short of funds, financing channels are not smooth, and financing methods are relatively simple. In the process of cooperative innovation, the uncertainty of technology and capital risks will lead to the uncertainty of customer demand, which greatly reduces the cooperative innovation ability of small and medium-sized enterprises.
1.3 intellectual property system risks
The intellectual property system has a great influence on the cooperative innovation of small and medium-sized enterprises. At present, China's intellectual property protection system is still in its infancy, which needs to be gradually improved and perfected. To sum up, there are the following problems: First, the system itself is not perfect, such as patents and proprietary technology. , not included in the registration, not qualified to relax the registration, it is easy for the parties to "scratch the ball"; Second, the business ability of law enforcement personnel is limited, and the management level is not high, which reduces the operational ability; Third, the punishment is not strong enough, and the amount of compensation is relatively low, so it is difficult to play the role of punishment; Fourth, resources (such as people, money and things) are invested less, and the management organization is not perfect enough, which greatly reduces the work efficiency.
1.4 Basic risk management
The basic management of small and medium-sized enterprises is poor, and they are not as standardized as large enterprises in organizational structure design, division of departments, staffing, job responsibilities and work standards, and business process optimization. There are many loose phenomena, poor organization and coordination, and poor cooperation between departments. Usually, the leader has the final say, and sometimes the leadership decision is unscientific, which has a great influence on the stability of cooperative innovation.
The cultural background of small and medium-sized enterprises is quite different, so it takes a long time for cultural convergence and running-in in cooperative innovation. Cultural friction will occur in the process of communication, which is manifested in the behavior conflict between enterprises and employees. If these conflicts cannot be properly resolved, cooperative innovation will
Get twice the result with half the effort.
1.5 Innovation Spillover Risk
The interests of all parties in cooperative innovation of small and medium-sized enterprises are not completely consistent, which makes them pay different attention to and protect the cooperative innovation results, leading to the leakage of core technologies and increasing the spillover risk of cooperative innovation results. In addition, there are many people involved in cooperative innovation, and the flow of talents is large, which increases the risk of spillover of cooperative innovation results. From the perspective of social benefits, the spillover of innovation results is conducive to promoting the economic development and social progress of a country or region, but for cooperative innovators, especially small and medium-sized enterprises that invest a lot of resources, the spillover of innovation results will inevitably lead to the loss of enterprise assets and the weakening of core competitiveness.
1.6 Political, economic, financial and natural risks.
Small and medium-sized enterprises are small in scale and weak in economic strength. The international and domestic political situation, economic and financial policies, natural factors and other macro-environmental factors have great influence on its cooperation and innovation, such as the subprime mortgage financial crisis in 2008 and the "5? 12 Wenchuan earthquake and other factors have had a great impact on the cooperative innovation of domestic small and medium-sized enterprises.
2 SME cooperative innovation risk control measures
2. 1
Strengthen the understanding and trust of partners and establish an evaluation system for cooperative innovation enterprises.
Before cooperation, it is necessary to conduct in-depth contact and investigation on the proposed cooperative enterprise, and to understand and master the capital, technology, scale, corporate culture, cooperation motivation and sincerity, and confidentiality awareness of the cooperative enterprise. In the process of research, professional companies can be hired to conduct special analysis and research on the proposed cooperative enterprises, so as to reduce the risks related to cooperative innovation.
If conditions permit, we can establish an index evaluation system for cooperative innovation enterprises, design different levels of indicators, and gradually establish an evaluation system for cooperative innovation of small and medium-sized enterprises by using analytic hierarchy process, fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method, data envelopment method, structural equation, BP neural network and other methods, and dynamically revise and adjust it by using information management system.
2.2 Improve the design of contract terms
Contract is the main constraint mechanism of cooperative innovation enterprises and plays a very important role in the smooth progress of cooperative innovation. It is necessary to evaluate the resources invested and the innovation results that will be produced by cooperative innovation, clarify the rights and obligations of the partners, improve the exit conditions, strengthen the awareness of avoiding moral hazard, improve the relevant provisions of the agreement, and prevent and eliminate cheating and speculation. In practical work, we can adopt dynamic contract, establish inspection and supervision mechanism, clarify the role of partners, improve the * * * sharing mechanism of cooperative innovation, and choose appropriate technical dispute handling and compensation methods.
2.3 Strengthen the basic management of enterprises and establish a good communication and conflict resolution mechanism.
Decision-makers of small and medium-sized enterprises must attach importance to the basic management of enterprises, and make great efforts in the aspects of enterprise organization design, division of labor, staffing, job responsibilities and work standards, business process optimization, etc., so as to improve the management level and thus improve the stability of cooperative innovation. In terms of coordination and communication, cooperative enterprises should establish a good coordination mechanism, coordinate and solve some conflicts in cooperation, avoid additional costs, strengthen team innovation awareness, openly exchange controversial issues, learn from each other, improve together, and achieve win-win cooperation and innovation.
2.4 Strengthen human resource management. Improve the quality of personnel in cooperative enterprises
When small and medium-sized enterprises cooperate and innovate, they must strengthen human resource management and constantly improve and innovate from the aspects of talent allocation, human resource development, performance management and salary system. In particular, we should pay attention to the cultivation of the quality of partners, establish a scientific and reasonable personnel management system, effectively motivate the personnel involved in cooperative innovation, enhance the stability of the workforce, and minimize the spillover risk of cooperative innovation technology.
2.5 Establish a risk management department to implement risk control.
When small and medium-sized enterprises cooperate in innovation, they should establish a special risk management department with the support of decision makers, and set up a special person to take charge of this work; Through a large number of investigations, the information of each partner in terms of capital, technology, scale, corporate culture, cooperation motivation and sincerity, and confidentiality awareness is collected. , establish a risk assessment system and select suitable partners; In the process of cooperative innovation, we should dynamically track risks, implement effective monitoring, and respond and adjust in time, so as to realize the risk control of cooperative innovation.
3 Conclusion
The sustained and rapid economic growth in China has promoted the rapid development of small and medium-sized enterprises, which have become an important part of the national economy and an important participant in technological innovation activities. Cooperative innovation has realized resource sharing and complementary advantages, and has become the main choice for small and medium-sized enterprises to innovate. Through analysis, it is pointed out that there are trust and loyalty risks, technology and capital risks, intellectual property system risks, basic management risks, innovation spillover risks and political, economic, financial and natural risks among cooperative enterprises. In view of the above risks, this paper puts forward control measures: strengthening the understanding and trust of partners, establishing an evaluation system for cooperative innovation enterprises, improving the design of contract terms, strengthening enterprise basic management, establishing a good communication and conflict resolution mechanism, strengthening human resource management, improving cooperative quality of enterprise, and establishing a risk management department, so as to implement the risk control work.