How intrafirm collaboration network influences a firm’s new knowledge search? Longitudinal evidence from the US biotechnology industry
Journal of Knowledge Management
ISSN: 1367-3270
Article publication date: 14 April 2023
Issue publication date: 5 January 2024
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to reveal the contribution mechanism of various types of intrafirm networks formed among inventors to firms’ searching for new knowledge. This study also intends to show how this mechanism is influenced by the geographic dispersion of inventors and the external alliance of firms.
Design/methodology/approach
This study develops an analytical framework building on social network theory to explain the collective search among inventors within the firm. The authors validate the hypotheses using the data from 316 publicly traded biotechnology firms in the USA.
Findings
As demonstrated by the findings, intrafirm network clustering facilitates the search for new knowledge. The geographic dispersion of inventors’ location has a negative moderating effect on this relation, whereas the number of alliance partners has a positive moderating effect on this relation. By contrast, the search for new knowledge is hampered by the intrafirm network average path length. The geographic dispersion of inventors positively moderates this relation, whereas a firm’s alliance partner number negatively moderates this relation.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to examine the joint effect of intrafirm networks, inventors’ geographic locations and external alliances on the new knowledge-searching process. This study points out that new knowledge acquired through inventors’ geographic locations and alliance partners is internalized efficiently according to different types of internal networks.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The support provided by the China Scholarship Council (CSC) during a visit of Ding Nan to Tilburg University is acknowledged.
Funding: Youth Project of High-end Innovation Think Tank of China Association for Science and Technology (2021ZZZLFZB1207054).
Citation
Nan, D. (2024), "How intrafirm collaboration network influences a firm’s new knowledge search? Longitudinal evidence from the US biotechnology industry", Journal of Knowledge Management, Vol. 28 No. 1, pp. 96-117. https://doi.org/10.1108/JKM-06-2022-0478
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited