This study advances a coopetition perspective to argue that an intangibility gap, defined as the difference in intangible asset intensity between industry-frontier foreign firms and local firms, generates both competitive threats and cooperative opportunities for local firms. Thus, an intangibility gap may affect local firms’ internal research and development (R&D) efforts beyond a linear, catching-up way of thinking. Using a sample of manufacturing firms in China, we find that intangibility gap has an inverted U-shaped relationship with the internal R&D intensity of local firms such that a moderate intangibility gap is more likely to stimulate local firms’ R&D than a small or large intangibility gap. Moreover, the results show that export intensity and state ownership of local firms serve as two boundary conditions under which the inverted U-shaped relationship becomes less and more pronounced, respectively.

本研究提出了一个竞合的观点，认为无形资产的差距（定义为行业前沿外国公司与本地公司之间无形资产密度的差异）会为本地公司既带来竞争威胁又带来合作机会。因此，无形资产的差距可能会非线性地影响本地公司的内部研发，而不仅仅是现行文献中的线性追赶的理论模式。我们以中国制造企业为样本进行研究，发现本地企业在无形资产上的差距会与企业内部研发强度呈现出倒U型的关系。换言之，适度的无形资产差距最有可能刺激本地企业的内部研发活动，而更小或更大的无形资产差距则不然。此外，我们的结果表明，本地企业的出口强度和国有资产权是这个倒U型关系的两个边界条件，会分别使关系变得更弱和更强。