Accelerating Secondary Innovation through Organizational Learning: A Case Study and Theoretical Analysis

On the basis of nearly 20 years of in-depth longitudinal case study on HY, a leading air separation plant manufacturer in China, this paper attempts to test the preliminary conceptual model of secondary innovation and to explore new thoughts and implications for further development of the existing model. How did HY accelerate its secondary innovation through successful organizational learning during the past decades? According to the detailed conceptual model of secondary innovation stages and organizational learning modes, this case study elaborates HY's recent integrative learning process of the secondary innovation cycle of 1996–2005 within the new context of intensified international competition in a fast-growing developing country market with large domestic demand and large FDIs. Different from the traditional technological learning model, the secondary innovation model emphasizes the important interrelations and interactions combining the acquired technologies with existing technology systems and further with local user requirements, which can be named “structural understanding” and “functional understanding”.