Influence of Interfirm Social Networks on Technological Innovation and its Time Lag Effect: a Meta-Analysis

Ranran Liu,Wei Chen,Xuan Wei

doi:10.1109/access.2019.2953977

Ranran Liu, Wei Chen + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1109/access.2019.2953977

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Journal: IEEE Access	Publication Date: Jan 1, 2019
Citations: 2	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: University of Jinan, Harbin Engineering University

Abstract

The influence of interfirm social networks on technological innovation has been extensively studied in the previous literature. However, there are conflicting empirical results across past studies. To reveal the actual correlation and the influencing factors of the relationship between interfirm social networks and technological innovation, this study conducts a meta-analysis. The meta-analysis includes 56 evidence-based studies, 321 effect sizes, and 134,098 sample firms in total. According to social capital theory and the network properties, we classify the interfirm social network measuring constructs into three and five variables, respectively. The actual correlation between each variable and technological innovation and the heterogeneity of the correlation values are obtained. Additionally, the results of this study show that there is a significant time lag effect of interfirm social networks on technological innovation. Moreover, the results of the meta-analysis confirm that regional differences and industrial differences both have a significant moderating effect on the relationship between interfirm social networks and technological innovation.

Highlights

Since the introduction of the theory of innovation by Schumpeter [1], the relationships between external links and innovation has been widely discussed [2], [3]
OF THE BASIC META-ANALYSIS Table 1 shows the results of the meta-analysis of the correlation between different interfirm social network variables on technological innovation under two classification methods
The Q- within-group of these three effect size is 6.372, which is significant at the 0.05 level, indicating that there is a significant difference in the impact of interfirm social networks on technological innovation when classified using social capital

Summary

Introduction

Since the introduction of the theory of innovation by Schumpeter [1], the relationships between external links and innovation has been widely discussed [2], [3]. No firm is an ‘‘island’’, which means that firms have always been connected with other parts outside the firm. Firms’ survival and development are always influenced by these connections [5]. With respect to the question of how to understand the connections between firms and the real world, and how these connections affect the survival and development of firms, there is already a lot of research and achievements. The relationship between interfirm social networks and technological innovation is an essential part of these studies [6]. With regard to the mechanism of the influence of interfirm social networks on technological innovation, many different and interrelated theories have been constructed. Concepts in social network theory such as strong and weak ties, direct and indirect ties, formal and informal ties, local and global positions, and

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