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Suppressing risk propagation in R&D networks: the role of government intervention

Yue Song (Department of Management Science and Engineering, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an, China)
Naiding Yang (Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an, China)
Yanlu Zhang (Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an, China)
Jingbei Wang (Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an, China)

Chinese Management Studies

ISSN: 1750-614X

Article publication date: 17 October 2019

Issue publication date: 9 December 2019

245

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to explore what factors influence the possibility of internal and external risk propagation in R&D networks and investigate how government intervention moderates the associations between the influencing factors and risk propagation.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors divided government intervention into directive and facilitative intervention and adopted an empirical research approach in this study. They collected 228 questionnaires from managers and R&D personnel participating in R&D projects in Shanghai and Jiangsu province through e-mail and in person. The data were used to carry out multiple regression analysis to test hypotheses.

Findings

The results show that the probability and consequence of risks positively affect the possibility of internal and external risk propagation; risk perception and transformation ability negatively influence the possibility of internal and external risk propagation; both directive and facilitative intervention weaken the relationship between the probability of risks and internal risk propagation when they are high than low the association between transformation ability and internal risk propagation is weaker when directive intervention is high than low, whereas facilitative intervention presents the insignificant moderation effect on the relationships between risk perception ability and internal and external risk propagation.

Originality/value

This study provides a distinctive theoretical perspective for risk conduction theory, government intervention theory and risk management. It also offered managers and the government a clear understanding of how to reduce or avoid risk propagation by leveraging directive and facilitative government intervention.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

This work was partially supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 71471146; 71871182; 71501158), Shaanxi Provincial Soft Science Research Program (2017KRM058), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (3102018JCC013). The authors would like to thank the referees for their efforts to improve the quality of this paper.

Citation

Song, Y., Yang, N., Zhang, Y. and Wang, J. (2019), "Suppressing risk propagation in R&D networks: the role of government intervention", Chinese Management Studies, Vol. 13 No. 4, pp. 1019-1043. https://doi.org/10.1108/CMS-07-2018-0621

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited

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