Knowledge Specialization, Knowledge Brokerage and the Uneven Growth of Technology Domains

Abstract

Why do certain domains of knowledge grow fast while others grow slowly or stagnate? Two distinct theoretical arguments hold that knowledge growth is enhanced by knowledge specialization and knowledge brokerage. Based on the notion of recombinant knowledge growth, we show that specialization and brokerage are opposing modes of knowledge generation, the difference between them lying in the extent to which homogeneous vs. heterogeneous input ideas get creatively recombined. Accordingly, we investigate how both modes of knowledge generation can enhance the growth of technology domains. To address this question, we develop an argument that reconciles both specialization and brokerage into a dynamic explanation. Our contention is that specializing in an increasingly homogeneous set of input ideas is both more efficient and less risky than brokering knowledge. Nevertheless, specializing implies progressively exhausting available recombinant possibilities, while brokerage creates new ones. Hence, technology domains tend to grow faster when they specialize, but the more specialized they become, the more they need knowledge brokerage to grow. We cast out our argument into five hypotheses that predict how growth rates vary across technology domains.

Risky Recombinations: Institutional Gatekeeping in the Innovation Process

“…Innovation researchers have repeatedly used patent data to explore benefits that result from seeking out and combining diverse knowledge (Fleming 2001, Rosenkopf & Nerkar 2001, Nerkar 2003, Fleming, Mingo & Chen 2007, Carnabuci & Bruggeman 2009. Patent data are among our best empirical sources for information about innovation.…”

“…Innovation scholarship has found that inventions have more impact when they combine knowledge across technological boundaries than when they draw from a single technology domain (Rosenkopf & Nerkar 2001, Nerkar 2003, Miller, Fern & Cardinal 2007, Carnabuci & Bruggeman 2009, Carnabuci & Operti 2013. The reason is that technological knowledge develops in a cumulative, path-dependent fashion (Dosi 1982, Nerkar 2003, resulting in well-circumscribed knowledge domains (Carnabuci & Bruggeman 2009).…”

“…The reason is that technological knowledge develops in a cumulative, path-dependent fashion (Dosi 1982, Nerkar 2003, resulting in well-circumscribed knowledge domains (Carnabuci & Bruggeman 2009). Consequently, spanning knowledge domains can give an inventor a better vision of technological possibilities, such that the ideas they choose to incorporate in inventions will be, on average, of higher quality (Hargadon & Sutton 1997, Hargadon 2002).…”

“…Theoretically, examining the role of patent offices is important because they act as "institutional gatekeepers," influencing a crucial, albeit often neglected, stage of the innovation process (Clayman & Reisner 1998). By selecting which patents to grant, patent offices influence which inventions enter the stock of public knowledge upon which innovators draw (Fleming 2001, Carnabuci & Bruggeman 2009). In a knowledge-based economy, where the publicly available technological knowledge codified within patents is a prime source of knowledge spillover, technological progress, and economic growth (Mokyr 2002, Foray 2006, illuminating the gatekeeping role of patent offices is central to a deeper, institutionally informed understanding of innovation.…”

Game Changer: The Topology of Creativity

“…Whether one relies on biologists, 2 mathematicians, 3 musicians (Gould 1994), or economists (Schumpeter [1942] 2012; Weitzman 1998), there is strong support for the notion that a novel, innovative idea is the result of recombination (Lopes 1992;Hargadon and Bechky 2006;Stark 2009;Carnabuci and Bruggeman 2009). In order to be creative, the team needs the requisite diversity of stylistic elements available for reworking.…”