英文摘要 |
This study investigates how equity ties between firms within business groups facilitate the innovation opportunities and/or create constraints. To develop our hypothesis, this research combines innovation studies and network theory. Using samples from 963 firms within 209 business groups in Taiwan between 2002 and 2005, we find that the greater the individual centrality of an affiliate within its group, the greater the innovative activity of the affiliate. In aggregate, a greater overall density and centralization of investment ties of business groups decreases individual affiliates' innovativeness. Finally, the most innovative affiliates tend to be central businesses in the loosely-connected or less-centralized groups. The results have implications for the more general issue of multi-business firm innovation. Since nested data structures exist in a business group, this paper employs Hierarchical Linear Models (HLM) to manage nested data and build separate regression models for each hierarchy. Investigating variations from both within and between hierarchies, this approach improves the accuracy of parameter estimation. |