Boundary spanning strategy and tacit knowledge recombination: Analysis of joint‐patent networks of patent‐intensive firms

Abstract

This paper collects 103 sample firms' 2015 to 2019 data through data envelopment analysis to measure their technical innovation performance and social network analysis to build joint‐patent networks and explore knowledge‐creating alliance relationships. The article highlights how tacit knowledge recombination works as a mechanism of boundary spanning. It emphasizes the significance of strategic balancing networks' position to improve technical innovation performance and competitiveness of patent‐intensive (PI) firms. This research contributes to shedding additional light on the nature of the boundary‐spanning mechanism and PI firms' knowledge exchanges. Specifically, it examines how balancing boundaries spanning through joint‐patent networks can influence the processes of tacit knowledge transmission and recombination between knowledge‐based actors.

On the duality of partner type diversity on network stability: the mediating role of knowledge recombination in R&D network

“…As such, it is difficult to maintain partnerships as the firm needs to find dissimilar but needed knowledge (Dong et al, 2018;Van Beers and Zand, 2014). Meanwhile, excessive relevance results in knowledge leakage (Frishammar et al, 2015), which will reduce uniqueness of internal knowledge resources and raises focal firm's concerns regarding the network (Guo et al, 2021;Fawad Sharif et al, 2020;Jiang and Zhang, 2023). Studies have showed that intense relevance in knowledge resource will end up in redundant information, which curtails focal firm's ability to process accurate information and adversely affects strategic objectives, which is not conducive for a stable network (de Leeuw et al, 2014;Nadia et al, 2021).…”

“…Knowledge accession is critical for enhancing product creativity and uniqueness; partners obtain necessary resources and undertake a range of specialized tasks and skills needed for breakthroughs in technical dilemmas (Carnabuci and Operti, 2013;Hagedoorn et al, 2018). Obtaining more diversified knowledge broadens scope of technical resources, improves degree of product differentiation and acquires more knowledge to improve their R&D speed (Jiang and Zhang, 2023). Stuart (2000) found that higher number of partners will gather more technical resources to yield maximum efficiency in innovation driven projects.…”

“…Recombination processes explore the interconnectedness mechanisms of tacit knowledge and promote their externalization with lower risks and costs. An enterprise studies its internal knowledge base with lesser time and resource consumption; thus, critical tacit knowledge is precisely captured and overall creativity in recombination process is achieved (Jiang and Zhang, 2023). Interactions and communications among inter-firms can allow them to more easily absorbed tacit knowledge and finding some potential opportunities, which are conducive to how focal firm effective take advantage of those non-redundant knowledge elements to maintain network stability among cooperative partners.…”

“…There lie more possibilities for knowledge recombination and creation in a more heterogenous and diverse set of knowledge resources to support the spillover effect among partners for new products and technologies development (Tang et al , 2022; Xia et al , 2018; Jiang and Zhang, 2023). Widely distributed and diversified knowledge is recombined in a way that presents variety of methods to solve intractable problems in R&D projects (Guo et al , 2021).…”

“…Therefore, the higher partner type relevance, the better the ability to distinguish and predict information resources among enterprises, which can prevent the adverse effects of information redundancy, and at the same time, make up for the ability of enterprises to process diverse knowledge resources and further promote the possibility of further promoting knowledge recombination. Knowledge recombination explores and integrates previously dispersed knowledge elements that minimizes boundaries between cooperative enterprises (Kaplan and Vakili, 2015; Grigoriou and Rothaermel, 2017; Jiang and Zhang, 2023). Partners, cooperatively, recombine knowledge resources to evade homogeneity and uphold effectiveness in terms of market competitiveness (Grigoriou and Rothaermel, 2017).…”