Does inertia matter for parts manufacturers’ innovation?

• DOI: 10.1007/s11192-013-1191-5
• Publication Date: 2013-11-25T06:36:47Z
• Authors: Shue Wu; Zhenlei Huang; Weizhou Zhong
• Keywords: 9. Industry and infrastructure; 0502 economics and business; 05 social sciences

The current study investigates parts manufacturers' innovative behavior from the population ecology perspective. Specifically, this paper proposes that firm level inertia and network level inertia matter in parts manufacturer's innovation. Using data from auto parts manufacturers, we test four hypotheses, and the results show that firm level inertia indicated by age does not matter, while firm's innovative inertia matters in parts manufacturers' innovation. At the same time, we find that cluster can promote general parts firms' innovation, but they will harm the innovative firms' innovative behavior. These results contribute to our understanding of parts manufacturer's innovation.