Influence of Interfirm Social Networks on Technological Innovation and its Time Lag Effect: a Meta-Analysis

The influence of interfirm social networks on technological innovation has been extensively studied in the previous literature. However, there are conflicting empirical results across past studies. To reveal the actual correlation and the influencing factors of the relationship between interfirm social networks and technological innovation, this study conducts a meta-analysis. The meta-analysis includes 56 evidence-based studies, 321 effect sizes, and 134,098 sample firms in total. According to social capital theory and the network properties, we classify the interfirm social network measuring constructs into three and five variables, respectively. The actual correlation between each variable and technological innovation and the heterogeneity of the correlation values are obtained. Additionally, the results of this study show that there is a significant time lag effect of interfirm social networks on technological innovation. Moreover, the results of the meta-analysis confirm that regional differences and industrial differences both have a significant moderating effect on the relationship between interfirm social networks and technological innovation.

[1]  D. Teece,et al.  DYNAMIC CAPABILITIES AND STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT , 1997 .

[2]  Jong de Jpj,et al.  Open innovation in SMEs : trends, motives and management challenges , 2009 .

[3]  Geert Duysters.  Collaboration and innovation: a review of the effects of mergers, acquisitions and alliances on innovation , 2006 .

[4]  P. Wortman,et al.  On the Reliability of Meta-Analytic Reviews , 1993 .

[5]  Anders Isaksson,et al.  Business networks and localization effects for new Swedish technology-based firms’ innovation performance , 2018, The Journal of Technology Transfer.

[6]  Corey C. Phelps,et al.  Interfirm Collaboration Networks: The Impact of Large-Scale Network Structure on Firm Innovation , 2007, Manag. Sci..

[7]  John Jianjun Zhu,et al.  Innovation and network multiplexity: R&D and the concurrent effects of two collaboration networks in an emerging economy , 2018 .

[8]  R. Wears,et al.  Journal prestige, publication bias, and other characteristics associated with citation of published studies in peer-reviewed journals. , 2002, JAMA.

[9]  J. R. Moore,et al.  The theory of the growth of the firm twenty-five years after , 1960 .

[10]  R. Coase.  The Nature of the Firm , 1937 .

[11]  Regis Terpend,et al.  The Intersection of Power, Trust and Supplier Network Size: Implications for Supplier Performance , 2012 .

[12]  Xu Jiang,et al.  Managerial Ties and Firm Innovation: Is Knowledge Creation a Missing Link?† , 2012 .

[13]  Matthew R. Marvel,et al.  Knowledge Acquisition, Network Reliance, and Early‐Stage Technology Venture Outcomes , 2011 .

[14]  J. West,et al.  Leveraging External Sources of Innovation: A Review of Research on Open Innovation , 2013 .

[15]  Wendy K. Smith,et al.  Paradox Research in Management Science: Looking Back to Move Forward , 2016 .

[16]  Stanley Wasserman,et al.  Social Network Analysis: Methods and Applications , 1994, Structural analysis in the social sciences.

[17]  K. Pavitt.  Sectoral Patterns of Technical Change : Towards a Taxonomy and a Theory : Research Policy , 1984 .

[18]  Cassidy R. Sugimoto,et al.  History and Evolution of (Biblio)Metrics , 2014 .

[19]  Russell J. Funk.  Making the Most of Where You Are: Geography, Networks, and Innovation in Organizations , 2014 .

[20]  Jeffrey H. Dyer,et al.  The Relational View: Cooperative Strategy and Sources of Interorganizational Competitive Advantage , 1998 .

[21]  A. M. Subramanian,et al.  Linking alliance portfolios to recombinant innovation: The combined effects of diversity and alliance experience , 2017 .

[22]  Jeffrey Braithwaite,et al.  Bridges, brokers and boundary spanners in collaborative networks: a systematic review , 2013, BMC Health Services Research.

[23]  E. von Hippel,et al.  Sources of Innovation , 2016 .

[24]  S. Borgatti,et al.  On Social Network Analysis in a Supply Chain Context , 2009 .

[25]  B. Cassiman,et al.  Open innovation: Are inbound and outbound knowledge flows really complementary? , 2016 .

[26]  Cassidy R. Sugimoto,et al.  The Citation: From Culture to Infrastructure , 2014 .

[27]  Carsten Bergenholtz,et al.  Inter-Organizational Network Studies—A Literature Review , 2011 .

[28]  J. Steenkamp,et al.  A Review and Evaluation of Meta-Analysis Practices in Management Research , 2009 .

[29]  Chih-Hsing Liu.  The relationships among intellectual capital, social capital, and performance - The moderating role of business ties and environmental uncertainty , 2017 .

[30]  野中 郁次郎,et al.  The Knowledge-Creating Company: How , 1995 .

[31]  Alexandru Giurca,et al.  A social network analysis of Germany’s wood-based bioeconomy: Social capital and shared beliefs , 2017 .

[32]  Steven B. Andrews,et al.  Structural Holes: The Social Structure of Competition , 1995, The SAGE Encyclopedia of Research Design.

[33]  Wei Chen,et al.  How Does A Firm’s Previous Social Network Position Affect Innovation? Evidence from Chinese Listed Companies , 2019, Sustainability.

[34]  S. Ghoshal,et al.  Social Capital, Intellectual Capital, and the Organizational Advantage , 1998 .

[35]  U. Lichtenthaler,et al.  A Capability-Based Framework for Open Innovation: Complementing Absorptive Capacity , 2009 .

[36]  Jessica Koehler,et al.  Open Innovation The New Imperative For Creating And Profiting From Technology , 2016 .

[37]  J. Dul.  Necessary Condition Analysis (NCA) , 2015 .

[38]  Wim Vanhaverbeke,et al.  The inter-organizational context of open innovation , 2006 .

[39]  Tove Brink,et al.  B2B SME Management of Antecedents to the Application of Social Media , 2017 .

[40]  Dong-Young Kim,et al.  Supplier dependence and R&D intensity: The moderating role of network centrality and interconnectedness , 2018, Journal of Operations Management.

[41]  Paul F. Skilton,et al.  Competition network structure and product market entry , 2015 .

[42]  Jan Kratzer,et al.  Why and How Combining Strong and Weak Ties within a Single Interorganizational R&D Collaboration Outperforms Other Collaboration Structures† , 2013 .

[43]  Clayton M. Christensen.  The Innovator's Dilemma , 1997 .

[44]  Dejin Su,et al.  Innovation orientations, external partnerships, and start-ups' performance of low-carbon ventures , 2018, Journal of Cleaner Production.

[45]  W. Powell,et al.  Interorganizational Collaboration and the Locus of Innovation: Networks of Learning in Biotechnology. , 1996 .

[46]  J. Barney.  Firm Resources and Sustained Competitive Advantage , 1991 .

[47]  B. Lundvall.  National Systems of Innovation , 1992 .

[48]  John Qi Dong,et al.  Being Central Is a Double-Edged Sword: Knowledge Network Centrality and New Product Development in U.S. Pharmaceutical Industry , 2016 .

[49]  Na Zhang,et al.  An evolutionary process of global nanotechnology collaboration: a social network analysis of patents at USPTO , 2017, Scientometrics.

[50]  F. Rothaermel,et al.  Organizing for knowledge generation: internal knowledge networks and the contingent effect of external knowledge sourcing , 2017 .

[51]  G. R. Oldham,et al.  The social network side of individual innovation , 2015 .

[52]  Phillip H. Phan,et al.  Internal capabilities, external structural holes network positions, and knowledge creation , 2016 .

[53]  J. Christensen.  Proximity and Innovation: A Critical Assessment , 2008 .

[54]  Bernard J. Jaworski,et al.  Market orientation: Review, refinement, and roadmap , 1996 .

[55]  Philipp G. Sandner,et al.  The Best of Both Worlds , 2016, Administrative Science Quarterly.

[56]  Daniel A. Levinthal,et al.  ABSORPTIVE CAPACITY: A NEW PERSPECTIVE ON LEARNING AND INNOVATION , 1990 .

[57]  Kim B. Clark,et al.  Architectural Innovation: The Reconfiguration of Existing Product Technologies and the Failure of , 1990 .

[58]  Andrew B. Hargadon,et al.  Technology brokering and innovation in a product development firm. , 1997 .

[59]  M. Porter,et al.  The Competitive Advantage of Nations. , 1990 .

[60]  Chaomei Chen,et al.  CiteSpace II: Detecting and visualizing emerging trends and transient patterns in scientific literature , 2006, J. Assoc. Inf. Sci. Technol..

[61]  Yong-Hui Li,et al.  Green Innovation and Performance: The View of Organizational Capability and Social Reciprocity , 2017 .

[62]  G. Hult,et al.  Innovation, Market Orientation, and Organizational Learning: An Integration and Empirical Examination , 1998 .

[63]  D. Mowery,et al.  Strategic alliances and interfirm knowledge transfer , 1996 .

[64]  G. Lilien.  The B2B Knowledge Gap , 2016 .

[65]  Marina Schmid.  Cognitive Sociology Language And Meaning In Social Interaction , 2016 .

[66]  Eitan Muller,et al.  The effect of social networks structure on innovation performance: A review and directions for research , 2019, International Journal of Research in Marketing.

[67]  J. West,et al.  Open innovation : researching a new paradigm , 2008 .

[68]  G. Loewenstein,et al.  Measuring the Prevalence of Questionable Research Practices With Incentives for Truth Telling , 2012, Psychological science.

[69]  K. Green.  National innovation systems: a comparative analysis , 1996 .