How intrafirm collaboration network influences a firm’s new knowledge search? Longitudinal evidence from the US biotechnology industry

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.

Converting inventions into innovations to address cancer grand challenges: The role of scientific and digital search intensity

“…Third, we accounted for the geographic dispersion of prior art knowledge by computing a revised version of the originality index; it considers the priority country of the cited patents instead of their IPC codes (Country Originality) (Lee, 2021). Fourth, we added a variable assessing the temporal distance between the focal patent and the prior art knowledge (Maturity), according to findings highlighting its relevance to innovation performance (Katila & Ahuja, 2002;Nan, 2023). Fifth, we controlled, through a dummy variable, for the fact that technological development was financially supported by the US NIH (Dummy NIH), as indicated in the Moonshot Patent Data.…”