臺大管理論叢 NTU Management Review VOL.29 NO.1

Choose Foreign R&D Partners From Right Pools: A Synthesis Framework 116 Thirdly, while considering the institutional voids in the causal paths between the learning strategy and the partner selection, we find that Hypothesis 3b is supported as β ’ 22 (-0.645, p < 0.01) is significantly smaller than β 22 (1.163, p < 0.01). This result indicates that the inclination of firms with the exploratory learning strategy to choose the R&D partners from their external stakeholders will be mitigated when the host countries are full of institutional voids. Regarding Hypothesis 3a, it is not supported as β ’ 11 (-0.208, p > 0.1) is smaller than β 11 (1.644, p < 0.01). This result implies that firms with the exploitative learning strategy tend to partner their external stakeholders when the host countries are full of institutional voids, which is in opposition to our prediction. This discrepancy will also be discussed in the next section. Finally, Table 4 presents the validation of mediating effects in our synthesis framework. The Sobel test results confirm that: (1) the relationship between the strategic motive of market expansion (ME) and the partner selection from the internal stakeholders (ISTK) is partially mediated by the exploitative learning strategy (EPOI); the coefficient of ISTK directly affected by ME decreases from -0.030 ( p = 0.051) to -0.050 ( p = 0.000) when the mediator of EPOI is included; (2) the relationship between the strategic motive of technology acquisition (TA) and the partner selection from the external stakeholders (ESTK) is partially mediated by the exploratory learning strategy (EPOI); the coefficient of ESTK directly affected by TA decreases from 0.135 ( p = 0.000) to 0.085 ( p = 0.003) when the mediator of EPOR is included. Table 4 Validation Results of Mediating Effect Causal Path Mediator Sobel Test p -value ME → EPOI → ISTK EPOI 2.5837*** 0.0097 TA → EPOR → ESTK EPOR 5.2440*** 0.0000 ME → EPOIIV → ISTK EPOIIV -0.9385 0.3480 TA → EPORIV → ESTK EPORIV -2.8453*** 0.0044 Notes: The results are the Aroian version of Sobel test; * p < 0.1; ** p < 0.05; *** p < 0.01. ME = market expansion, TA = technology acquisition, EPOI = exploitation, EPOR = exploration, EPOIIV = exploitation × institutional voids, EPORIV = exploration × institutional voids, ISTK = internal stakeholder, ESTK = external stakeholder.