质量能力与技术创新效率——质量升级视角

    质量能力与技术创新都是建立企业竞争优势的关键，但在理论中缺乏其相关性的定量实证研究，在实践中也往往割裂看待。本文提出企业四大质量能力定义和定量指标；根据北京市168家制造企业的调查数据，基于质量升级视角，使用三分位数法将企业划分为低、中、高三类质量能力；采用三阶段DEA模型探究低、中、高三种质量能力的技术创新效率的异质性。结果表明：质量能力升级对于企业技术创新效率存在显著促进作用，质量能力的升级必然带来技术创新效率的提升；环境影响因素中劳动者受教育程度对企业技术创新效率有显著的正向影响，成立年限对企业技术创新效率有显著的负向影响；低质量能力制约了企业的技术创新效率，技术创新规模不合理也是导致企业技术创新效率低下的重要原因。本研究不仅丰富了企业核心能力与企业创新等领域的研究空间；同时也为企业通过积极实施全面质量管理，不断提升质量能力，进而促进企业技术创新竞争优势提供了参考；并为政府将企业微观质量能力升级作为带动技术创新提供了充分论证。

Quality capability and technological innovation efficiency——A study from the quality upgrade perspective

   Quality has become an important bottleneck restricting China′s economic development under the "new normal". Through actual surveys and related research results of manufacturing companies in Beijing, it is found that manufacturing companies mostly have quality capability problems such as lack of quality planning, inadequate quality control, incomplete quality assurance, and low-quality improvement, and technological innovation issues such as insufficient investment in technological innovation and lack of technological innovation achievements. Quality capability has an important impact on technological innovation. Some basic concepts of quality management, such as customer orientation, process management, and continuous improvement, all play an important role in innovation. A series of quality management systems and methods, such as Performance Excellence Model, ISO9001, Design for Six Sigma, Quality Function Deployment, are widely used in innovation management practices. Quality management runs through the entire process of enterprise innovation. The stimulation, realization, and diffusion of industrial innovation all require a quality management process to ensure the effectiveness of innovation. There have been many studies on the impact of quality management practices on innovation, and both promotion and inhibition are involved. However, the existing research has not formed a comprehensive understanding of the definition and dimensions of the enterprise′s micro-quality capabilities, and lacks theoretical guidance. What is the mechanism of the relationship between the quality capabilities and technological innovation efficiency? Do different levels of quality capabilities differentiate the efficiency of technological innovation? These problems still lack quantitative empirical research.    In order to fill in the research gaps above, this paper refers to the definitions of core competence theory pioneers Prahalad and Hamel from the perspective of quality upgrade and defines quality capability as the ability basing on the accumulated quality knowledge and resources that enterprise can use to continuously create value for customers, unique comprehensive quality planning, control, guarantee, and improvement capabilities. By referring to the four stages of the quality management process summarized in the Juran Quality Management Manual: quality planning, quality control, quality assurance, and quality improvement, this article divides quality capability into four dimensions: quality planning capability, quality control capability, quality guarantee ability, quality improvement ability. According to the data availability and the specific situation of the collected data indicators, customer satisfaction, product quality grade rate, quality management related system certification and quality loss rate are selected as quality capability measurement indicators. According to the survey data of 168 manufacturing companies in Beijing, this paper uses the quantile method to divide the enterprises in three quality capabilities types: low, medium and high. The three-stage DEA model is used to explore the heterogeneity of technological innovation efficiency of low, medium and high-quality capabilities, and the following conclusions and recommendations are drawn.     First, the upgrading of quality capabilities has a significant role in promoting the efficiency of technological innovation. The upgrading of quality capabilities will inevitably lead to the improvement of technological innovation efficiency. The study found that regardless of whether environmental factors are excluded, the comprehensive technical efficiency value of high-quality capability enterprises is significantly higher than that of medium and low-quality capability enterprises. After excluding environmental factors, the value of comprehensive technical efficiency of enterprises with low quality capabilities dropped significantly, indicating that low-quality capability companies were in a favorable environment but failed to achieve high efficiency of technological innovation or convert existing resources into technological innovation, and also lack of the ability to continuously improve and optimize integration. The result reveals that quality capability is an important factor influencing enterprise technological innovation. Therefore, enterprises should pay attention to the improvement of quality capability while increasing investment in technological innovation, and the government should guide enterprises to participate in quality activities, encourage enterprises to improve quality capabilities by increasing quality awards and its social influence, and then promote technological innovation. The enterprise itself should also fully recognize the importance of quality capability to the growth of technological innovation efficiency, actively participate in quality management training, create an effective corporate culture that is conducive to improving quality capability, and combine other advantages to improve quality capability.     Second, among the environmental influencing factors, the education level of laborers has a significant positive impact on the efficiency of technological innovation of enterprises, and the number of years of establishment has a significant negative impact on the efficiency of technological innovation of enterprises. The regression coefficients of laborers′ education level and years of establishment are both significant at the 10% significance level. The regression coefficients of laborers′ education level and each input slack variable are negative, and the regression coefficients of the establishment age and each input slack variable are positive values. The effect of firm size and corporate profit on the variable of technological innovation efficiency input is different. The government should increase the preferential policies for highly educated talents, introduce high-quality talents, and attach importance to the construction of quality management teams; encourage enterprises with earlier establishment years to strengthen technological innovation. The government should not only meet the current production and operation benefits, but also focus on technological innovation, and accelerate the conversion of technological innovation input to output in order to achieve long-term development of enterprises. Large-scale enterprises should rationally allocate the number of scientific researchers and scientific research input ratio according to their situation, to improve the efficiency of technological innovation. High-profit enterprises should overcome inertia and improve innovation driving force, give full play to its own capital advantages, rationally allocate R&D institutions, and thereby improve technological innovation capabilities.     Third, low-quality capabilities restrict the efficiency of technological innovation in enterprises. The unreasonable scale of technological innovation is also an important reason for the low efficiency of technological innovation in enterprises. After excluding environmental factors, the comprehensive technical efficiency value of high-quality capability enterprises decreased by 3.45%, and the low-quality capability enterprises decreased by 15.26%.The result indicates that low-quality capability companies are in a favorable environment but the technical efficiency is low, and that enterprises failed to effectively use their own technology resources, human resources, equipment, capital and other quality resources, and also shows that low-quality capabilities restrict the efficiency of technological innovation. Enterprises should pay attention to the cultivation of quality capabilities, actively participate in quality management training and quality activities, find needs in quality management activities, meet demands, continuously improve, optimize and integrate resources. Meanwhile, enterprises should adjust the scale of enterprise technological innovation to make it more reasonable, and effectively improve enterprise technological innovation effectiveness.