The Impact of Technological Hyperlearning on Innovation Performance under the Open Innovation Pattern

The development of new science and technologies(e.g.cloud computing,smart phones,search engine,and micro-blogs) is shortening the product life cycle,intensifying market competition,and flattening the world.Carayannis is the inventor of the technological hyperlearning concept and asserts that technological learning is a systematic process consisting of strategic,tactical,and operational levels.Chesbrough adds values to the concept by asserting that technological hyperleanring is an open innovation that ideas and knowledge originate not only from inside but also outside,including users,supply chain upstream and downstream,competitors,cooperation of industries,universities,research institutes,etc.The open innovation model gives a new perspective of studying an enterprise's technological learning horizontally.This paper considers the technological learning from both vertical and horizontal perspectives.The goal of this paper is to discover how technological hyperlearning influences the innovation performance in the open innovation model. The first part of this paper is a review of literature on technological hyperlearning and open innovation.A theoretical framework is derived from the literature review.The second part is an empirical analysis of data collected from SUPCON,Haier,Insigma,GE,and Motorola's RD center in Hangzhou.The factor analysis identifies six different technological learning behaviors for open innovation: strategic,tactical,and operational technological learning for both inter-and intra-organizations.Our regression analysis shows that other than inter-organizational tactical technological learning,the other five learning behaviors all have significant impact on innovation performance.The last part of this paper discusses analysis results,limitations,and future research directions.We also make the following suggestions: 1.The open innovation should aim at achieving the synergistic effect between inter-technological learning and intra-technological learning.While Chinese enterprises need to protect its core capability and intellectual property,they need to partner with others to achieve open innovation. 2.Chinese enterprises should master the force between close and open innovation.Although open innovation has positive influence on the organizational performance,it incurs transaction and opportunity costs.Some studies show that the width and depth of openness and innovation performance has an "inverted U" relationship for STI enterprises.The relationship indicates that the innovation performance will decrease when is the innovation is open to some extent.STI enterprises should not engage into open innovation without any control. 3.Technological learning hierarchy should be matched to the innovation process dynamically.Technological hyperlearning is a hierarchical and correlated system.In the initial stage,operational technological learning is a low-cost and fast method to accumulate the stock of knowledge.As an enterprise grows,the importance of tactical learning begins to elevate.New technology and technological process are more useful in the stage.However,technological leadership will drive enterprises into the "success trap" that the former core capability cannot sustain the evolving competitive advantages.As such,strategic technological learning is more important in this stage.