Our study employs a social network perspective to investigate the influence of firms' structural and relational embeddedness on their innovation outcome in a directed network in a mature industrial cluster. From the structural embeddedness perspective, we argue that a central position in an informal advice network does not bring equal innovation benefits to advice-seekers and advice-givers. Notably, in a mature cluster, we expect that the number of advice giving ties (popularity) positively influences the innovation outcome of firms, whereas the number of advice-seeking ties {activity) negatively affects the firms' innovation. We also expect that access to structural holes has a negative and significant impact on innovation outcome in a mature industrial cluster. From the relational embeddedness perspective, we investigate the effect of strong and weak ties on the innovation outcome of firms in a mature industrial cluster. We expect a positive relationship between firms' innovation output and strong ties, and a negative relationship between weak ties and the innovation output of firms. Our findings suggest that activity has a significant negative impact on the innovation outcome of firms, while popularity shows a significant positive impact on the innovative outcome of firms. Strong ties show a positive and significant impact on innovation, while weak ties demonstrate a significant negative effect on innovation. We also test the mediating effect of absorptive capacity on the relationship between advice ties and innovation. We find that absorptive capacity fully mediates the relationship between advice-giving and advice-seeking ties, and innovation.
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