Web Service Platforms, Social Networks, and Firms' Innovation Capability: Mediating Effects Model Based on Web Service Platform Synergies

摘要

With the rise of new retail concepts, commodity trading has evolved from the traditional supply-to-consumer linear single-track relationship into a brand-new Internet platform-based S2b2c social networking system.(1) Despite this, over 90 percent of wood product enterprises have an extremely limited understanding and application of this new kind of web service platform-based marketing systems. To reveal the impact of web service platforms on the growth of wood product enterprises, this study proposes an analytical framework that integrates the web service platform synergy, the social network synergy, and the corporate innovation capability. Using this framework, the effects of social network and web service platform synergies on the corporate innovation capability are analyzed, with a particular focus on exploring the mediating role of web service platform synergy between the social network synergy and the corporate innovation capability. Based on the questionnaire survey data of 489 large, medium, and small-wood product enterprises in the Pearl River Delta and the Yangtze River Delta regions, the following empirical results are derived through a combination of stepwise regression and Sobel test: (1) Web service platform synergy has a significant positive impact on the corporate innovation capability; (2) Social network synergy has a significant positive impact on the corporate innovation capability; (3) Social network synergy has a significant positive impact on the establishment of web service platforms; and (4) Web service platform synergy has a partial intermediary relationship between social network synergy and innovation capability, accounting for 34.05 percent of the total effect. The results of this study indicate that like social networks, web service platforms are the strategic resources of enterprises. In the context of open innovation, it is essential for the wood product enterprises to deeply integrate with the social networks and web service platforms, which helps enhance their innovation capability.