How Does Inter-Organizational Cooperation Impact Organizations’ Scientific Knowledge Generation? Evidence from the Biomass Energy Field

Liu Li,Chaoying Tang

doi:10.3390/su13010191

Abstract

Previous studies have demonstrated that accessing external knowledge is important for organizations’ knowledge generation. The main purpose of this study is to investigate how the diversity and amount of organizations’ external scientific knowledge influence their scientific knowledge generation. We also consider the moderating effect of the redundant industrial scientific knowledge and the amount of technical knowledge from external technical cooperators. The social network analysis method is used to establish both ego- and industrial-scientific cooperation network, and ego-technical cooperation network in order to analyze the external scientific knowledge and technical knowledge. The empirical analysis is based on patent and article data of 106 organizations in the biomass energy industry (including firms, universities and research institutes), and the results show that organizations’ structural holes and degree centrality of scientific cooperation network have positive effects on their scientific knowledge generation. In addition, organizations’ degree centrality of technical cooperation network positively moderates the relationship between their degree centrality of scientific cooperation network and scientific knowledge generation. Furthermore, density of industrial scientific cooperation network decreases the positive effect of organizations’ structural holes on their scientific knowledge generation, while it strengthens the positive effect of degree centrality of scientific cooperation network on their scientific knowledge generation. Academic contributions and practical suggestions are discussed.

Highlights

Developing clean and renewable energies has become the important strategy of handling the challenge of global climate warming [1,2]
We argue that density of industrial scientific cooperation network will weaken the positive effect of organizations’ structural holes and degree centrality on their scientific knowledge generation
In line with previous studies about organizations’ scientific knowledge generation, organizations’ structural holes of scientific cooperation network were positively related to their scientific knowledge generation (r = 0.276, p < 0.01), and degree centrality of scientific cooperation network was positively related to their scientific knowledge generation (r = 0.296, p < 0.01)

Summary

Introduction

Developing clean and renewable energies has become the important strategy of handling the challenge of global climate warming [1,2]. The important biomass energy sources are wood and wood wastes, agricultural crops and their waste byproducts, animal wastes, waste from food processing and aquatic plants and algae [6]. These biomass materials are being converted into a suitable form of energy via different routes, such as biochemical, chemical and thermo-chemical [5,6,7]. The conversion routes of biomass materials can be achieved by advanced technologies [5] in order to reduce the harmful effects of fossil fuels, cut down technical cost and carry out engineering application research [8]. Advanced technical knowledge greatly promotes the process of industrial commercialization of scientific knowledge through

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Conclusion