FIRMS' NETWORK POSITION, INDUSTRY HIERARCHY POSITION AND INNOVATION AND AN ADDITIONAL EXAMINATION ON STRUCTURAL EQUIVALENT BLOCK MODELS AND BETWEEN-SECTOR POSITION.

Abstract

In contrast to the focus on the social ties of individual actor in the conventional social network analysis, in this research, we explore how a firm's industrial network position and industry hierarchy position based on its institutional ties influences its technological innovation. In this research we find that firms with a good network position will result in more innovation and its industry hierarchy position will moderate the above relationships. We also make investigations on block models based on structural equivalence, general network advantages based on combination of network position and industry hierarchy position, and between-sector position comparison to the firms within the same value chain sector. By these investigations we find that blocks with more connection to other blocks will result in more innovation in the blocks, firms with different general network position advantages will perform differently in innovation, and firms with more between-sector connections will perform better in innovation comparing to the other firms in the same sector. Research limitation and future direction are also discussed and provided in this research.