Abstract: One basic feature of China's economic development model in the new era is switching from highspeed growth stage to highquality development one. Enhancing the novelty of enterprise innovation is an important motivation for innovation-driven transformation and upgrading and high-quality development. By outsourcing part of R&D tasks, enterprises can not only obtain advanced knowledge and technology at lower cost, but also improve R&D performance, so as to formulate their unique competitive advantages. This paper examines whether enterprises are more inclined to implement R&D outsourcing when undertaking innovative projects with higher novelty and whether the improvement of contract enforcement can promote the implementation of R&D outsourcing.
The decision of R&D outsourcing is the result of the trade-off between benefits and risks. The increase of innovation novelty can improve the profit of R&D outsourcing specialization, reduce the overall risk level and improve the net profit of R&D outsourcing, so enterprises are more inclined to outsource non-core R&D activities. At the same time, the distortion caused by incomplete contract can be corrected by the improvement of contract enforcement to some extent. When the quality of contract enforcement is high, the improvement of innovation novelty has stronger promoting effects on the probability of R&D outsourcing, and the contract enforcement has positive moderating effects.
Using data of 7342 firms in 14 countries from the World Bank's Enterprise Surveys Database and Innovation Follow-up Surveys Database to empirically test this standpoint through Probit model that the probability of enterprises implementing R&D outsourcing increases significantly with the improvement of the novelty of innovation projects, no matter which initial novelty the novelty level jumps from. This indicates that for innovation projects, enterprises tend to outsource part of the non-core R&D tasks so that they can focus more on the core tasks. The improvement of contract enforcement will increase the probability of R&D outsourcing, which has positive moderating effects on innovation novelty, but this moderating effect mainly reflects in the manufacturing industry.
In conclusion, this paper attempts to explain the impact of the novelty of R&D projects on the choice of R&D outsourcing based on the incomplete contract theory, and confirms that enterprises are more inclined to adopt the R&D outsourcing mode when they are engaged in innovation projects with high value. Innovation novelty has stronger effects on R&D outsourcing tendency in the countries with higher quality of contract enforcement. The policy implication of the conclusions of this paper is that in the context of the continuous improvement of the innovation capability and innovation level of enterprises, relevant policies should be dedicated to promoting the improvement and development of the technology trading market and providing good institutional guarantee for R&D outsourcing.

Key words: Innovation, Novelty, R&D Outsourcing, Contract Enforcement

摘要： 本文考察企业在从事具有较高新颖度的创新项目时是否更倾向于实施研发外包。理论分析表明,随着创新项目新颖度的提高,研发外包的专业化分工收益上升,由不完全契约导致的风险下降,企业更倾向于将非核心研发活动外包,从而使自身更加专注于核心任务。利用世界银行创新跟踪调查数据的经验研究加以验证,发现企业实施研发外包的概率随创新项目新颖度的提高而显著上升,无论从哪个初始新颖度跃升都是如此,契约制度改善对上述影响存在显著的正向调节效应。该结论的政策含义在于:在企业创新能力和创新水平不断提高的背景下,相关政策应致力于促进技术交易市场的完善和发展,为研发外包提供良好的制度保障。

关键词: 创新, 新颖度, 研发外包, 契约制度