关键词: 外部冲击, 企业创新韧性, 风险投资

Abstract:

The current complex and severe internal and external environment have unprecedented impacts on enterprises development. Since innovation activities are characterized by high input and long cycle, once the input process is interrupted, it will negatively impact innovation activities continuously. Therefore, improving enterprises innovation resilience has become a real problem to be solved. Reviewing the literature, scholars have conducted many studies on organizational resilience from various aspects, but few studies have discussed the definition of enterprise innovation resilience from the micro level. This paper argues that it is essential to explore the innovation resilience of enterprises which are the main body of innovation, and to enhance innovation competitiveness by effectively buffering risks through self-regulation, adaptation, and learning ability in facing external shocks. Furthermore, enterprise innovation resilience constitutes the innovation ecosystem, which is the key micro-foundation of regional and industrial innovation systems. The paper clarifies the connotation of enterprise innovation resilience and provides new ideas for enhancing its development in the era of knowledge-driven economy. We define enterprise innovation resilience as the ability to mitigate or reduce the negative impact in the face of external shocks and maintain the stability and sustainable development of the innovation system. Then, we examine its flexibility, continuity, and creativity characteristics. Based on the above analysis of firms' innovation resilience, assessing firms' innovation resilience can be developed, which is the basis for targeted interventions.We discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the comprehensive indicator method and the core variable method to measure the firm's innovation resilience. Enterpriseinnovation resilience relies on the resources and capabilities of the organization, the internal and external factors affecting the innovation resilience of firms are discussed, including firms' characteristics, external environment, and financing constraints. We analyzed theoretical mechanisms influencing firms' innovation resilience from the perspectives of providing redundant resources to enhance the adaptive capacity of innovation strategy adjustment, alleviating financing constraints to maintain the stable capacity of innovation input, and optimizing resource allocation to enhance the recovery capacity of innovation performance. For further validation, venture capital, a significant variable influencing firms' innovation resilience, is selected for empirical testing. As the sample, we used the quarterly data of listed companies in China GEM from 2009 to 2020. The patent data, venture capital investment, and venture capital institution-related data of enterprises are combined. We found that venture capital support significantly enhances firms' innovation resilience. This effect is heterogeneous by firm characteristics, with venture capital significantly enhancing the innovation development resilience of foreign-funded firms, private firms, small and medium-sized firms, and low R&D intensity. In addition, corporate venture capital, foreign venture capital, and venture capital in southern regions play a significant positive moderating role in this effect. Based on research results, we propose to give high priority to enhancing the innovation resilience of enterprises, industry organizations, and governments. Enterprises should use venture capital as an effective supplementary means of countercyclical adjustment, promote capital market reform and other related policy recommendations, and jointly form a sound innovation ecology, which may provide helpful references for enterprises' survival and development in a turbulent environment.

Key words: external shocks, enterprise innovation resilience, venture capital