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With the advent of the Digital 2.0 era, online doctor–patient (D–P) interaction has become increasingly popular. However, due to the fact that doctors use their fragmented time to serve patients, online D–P interaction inevitably has some problems, such as the lack of pertinence in the reply content and doctors' relative unfamiliarity with their individual patients. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to excavate whether potential D–P social ties and D–P knowledge ties accentuate or attenuate the influence of patient selection (online and offline selection).

The authors used the methods of text mining and empirical analysis on the structured and unstructured data of an online consultation platform in China to examine the research hypotheses.

The findings illustrate that the potential D–P social ties increase the influence on patient selection, as do the potential D–P knowledge ties. Specifically, the effect of social ties on patient selection is positively moderated by patient health literacy. Conversely, health literacy weakens the link between knowledge ties and patient selection. In addition, the doctor's title weakens the influence of social ties on patient selection, in contrast to knowledge ties (partially).

This study provides guidance for doctors and patients on how to communicate effectively and alleviate tension within D–P relationships. The study’s findings have both theoretical and practical implications for both doctors' and online platforms' decision-making.

This paper aims to address the gap that, to date, no systematic review has been carried out on the role that structural social capital (SC) plays for knowledge transfer and innovation at the interpersonal, inter-unit and inter-firm levels. Individuals and organisations are becoming increasingly involved in collaboration networks to share knowledge and generate innovation. SC theory has been adopted in several areas of study to explain how individuals, groups and organisations manage relationships to generate innovation.

This review covers studies of SC in organisational behaviour, strategy and management over a period of 20 years.

The literature review shows that knowledge types and knowledge transfer processes are the missing links in the relationship between structural SC and innovation. Moreover, the paper demonstrates that seemingly opposite configurations of SC are complementary to each other (structural holes vs dense networks; strong vs weak ties) and that contextual factors should be considered when discussing the effects of SC on knowledge transfer and innovation. In addition, it is the balance of different configurations of SC which enables an individual or a company to explore, access, assimilate and combine different knowledge types, which will lead to improved innovation outcomes.

This review facilitates understanding of the role of SC for knowledge transfer processes and the mediating role of knowledge transfer processes and knowledge types in the relationship between structural SC and innovation.

The purpose of this paper is to address the strategies adopted by science-based start-ups to gain access to knowledge resources at diverse spatial levels. It investigates the presence and relative importance of ties endowed with different types of proximity in firms’ knowledge networks, and the role played by non-geographical proximity in gaining access to knowledge sources, both nearby and distant.

An analytical framework is proposed that distinguishes between two dimensions of proximity – geographical and relational – leading to different forms of proximity, which are further linked with modes of knowledge interaction (formal or informal). A methodology for network reconstruction is developed and applied to Portuguese molecular biology firms, permitting to identify the origin, location and nature of the ties and to position them along forms of proximity.

The results show that the incidence and mix of the different forms of proximity vary in firms’ individual networks, being possible to identify several patterns. They also uncover the relevance of relational proximity, whether or not coexisting with geographical proximity and often compensating for its absence.

This approach needs to be complemented with further research that refines the operationalization of relational proximity, by attempting to disentangle the influence of different types of non-geographical proximity. Further research will also explore in greater detail the factors that may explain variety in the proximity mix of firms’ networks.

The paper offers insights into the knowledge sourcing strategies adopted by science-based firms located outside the main concentrations of knowledge in their field.

The paper contributes to the literature on the role of proximity in knowledge access, by developing and empirically testing a taxonomy of forms of proximity, considering the characteristics of science-based firms. It uncovers the mechanisms through which relational proximity can contribute to span spatial boundaries, highlighting the role played by entrepreneurs’ personal networks.

Knowledge sharing is a fundamental source of competitive advantage. Social networks are thought to play an important role in knowledge sharing, but are presumed to create a trade-off such that a network can be optimized to promote either knowledge seeking or knowledge transfer, but not both. The trade-off, however, is premised on, and representative of a broader tendency to treat, brokerage and closure as contradictory network forms. We challenge this assertion and propose a theory of knowledge sharing with brokerage and closure as compatible and complementary. Evidence from a contract research and development firm broadly supports our theory. We also report the results of a simulation analysis, which illustrate that only in the extremely rare case when a network is characterized by nearly complete balance do brokerage and closure begin to create a trade-off.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationships between two types of informal ties and radical innovation in the context of China’s university spin-offs and the moderating roles of knowledge breadth and depth in such relationships.

A systematic review of literature on informal ties, internal knowledge base and radical innovation provides the theoretical foundation of the research framework and hypotheses. Using a sample of 158 China’s university spin-offs, the authors conduct a regression analysis on the theoretical framework and hypotheses.

The results show that business and university ties are positively related to radical innovation. Moreover, the effects of business and university ties on radical innovation are contingent on knowledge breadth and depth in opposite ways. In particular, the positive effect of business ties on radical innovation depends significantly on internal knowledge depth rather than on knowledge breadth, and the positive effect of university ties on radical innovation will be affected by internal knowledge breadth rather than knowledge depth.

Managers of university spin-offs must examine informal ties they already have and identify their nature, content and embedded advantages and promptly adjust their strategy of informal ties to adapt to their firms’ internal knowledge base.

This study highlights the positive role of managers’ personal connections with different external parties in facilitating radical innovation and advances the understanding of informal ties by proposing that the effects of informal ties on radical innovation are contingent on a firm’s internal knowledge base in the context of China’s university spin-offs.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse how different strengths of simmelian ties affect knowledge spirals and investigate which major factors affect the influence of simmelian ties on knowledge spirals.

The empirical data in this paper were collected through e-mail and interview questionnaires to R&D teams in high-tech manufacturing enterprises in China. The authors obtained 132 teams' valid responses. The interval decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (interval DEMATEL) method, differential evolution (DE) algorithm and Bayesian structural equation modelling (BSEM) were employed to test the theoretical framework developed for this paper.

The results show that strong simmelian ties have positive associations with high-performance work practices (HPWPs). Meanwhile, weak simmelian ties have positive associations with HPWPs. Furthermore, HPWPs and knowledge fermentation play a conducive role in the relationship between simmelian ties and knowledge spirals.

This paper contributes in three ways. First, it extends research on the relational antecedents of knowledge spirals. Second, this paper extends the study of social capital related to knowledge spirals. Third, this paper elucidates less familiar factors relating HPWPs to knowledge fermentation by testing the mediating role of HPWPs in knowledge fermentation.

The aim of this study is to explore the role of social tie content in the interpersonal knowledge transfer process and to test the effects of different social ties, i.e. distinguishing instrumental tie and expressive tie, on knowledge transfer, using cognition‐ and affect‐based trust as the mediators.

A theoretical model was tested through a survey carried out on 152 MBA students of a university in east China, and structural equation modelling (SEM) was employed for data analysis.

This research proved that both instrumental and expressive ties will facilitate trust and knowledge transfer. Cognition‐based trust is not essential when low‐tacit, general knowledge is transferred, and the effect of the expressive tie becomes negative when trust is controlled. When transferring general knowledge the instrumental tie is more efficient. However, contrary to the hypothesis, it is found that the effect of the expressive tie is not significantly larger than that of the instrumental tie during the tacit knowledge transfer process.

Besides tacitness, future research may consider involving more dimensions of knowledge into the theoretical model. Longitudinal and cross‐national studies are also needed.

The paper suggests that managers can enhance knowledge transfer among co‐workers by enhancing their instrumental and expressive ties. However, overuse of the expressive tie is risky. The importance of trust construction in organizations is also underscored.

The study reminds scholars to pay attention to the role of tie content in knowledge transfer. The findings also help managers to know how to increase knowledge transfer through promoting intra‐organizational networking.

This study aims to examine how the interactions between the entrepreneur’s technical and market knowledge and the intra- and extra-industry ties affect resources acquisition.

The authors made a questionnaire from a sample of 300 high-technology companies located in the incubator in Xi’an, of which 165 were usable, and the final response rate was 55 per cent, the authors used optimal scaling regression analyses to analyze the data and test the hypotheses.

There is a positive relationship between the entrepreneurs’ knowledge and the resources acquisition. The effects of the technical knowledge and the market knowledge are contingent on the intra-industry ties and the extra-industry ties in different ways. In particular, an entrepreneur with technical knowledge has an easier access to required resources from the intra-industry ties than extra-industry ties. In contrast, an entrepreneur with market knowledge can obtain more easily the needed resources from the extra-industry ties than the intra-industry ties.

The paper conducted an empirical test of how the interactions between the entrepreneurs’ knowledge and industry ties affect the resources acquisition in the context of China’s emerging economy, which has not been studied in the current literature. This paper provides implications for entrepreneurs with technical and market knowledge in finding the right way to obtain needed resources through their industry ties.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how focal firms in supply networks manage weak and strong ties for exploration and exploitation innovation in mature industries. In doing so, the paper extends the understanding of how focal firms manage open innovation (OI).

The empirical base is a multiple case study conducted on three companies operating in mature industries in Europe.

Findings of this study reveal, analyze and explain a diverse set of OI practices in the supply networks of mature industries in which the focal firms integrate strong and weak supply ties to enhance innovation outcomes. This study provides a fine-grained view of the benefits of the additive and interactive effects of strong and weak ties in OI. More specifically, the analysis reveals an enhancing role of strong supply ties in exploration, which previously was associated solely with weak ties. Moreover, this study sheds light on the dominant and orchestrating roles of focal firms.

The findings provide insights to enhance OI practices beyond the limited role of the weak ties of the supply network and highlight the essential role of the strong supply ties in mature industries.

While previous studies have associated exploration with weak ties, findings of this study reveal that exploration-oriented activities in mature industries also extend to strong ties. In the strong ties of mature industries, this study finds there is not only the exploitation of existing knowledge but also the reconfiguration and innovation of products.

The literature on interfirm networks devotes scant attention to the ways collaborating firms combine and integrate the knowledge they share and to the subsequent learning outcomes. This study aims to investigate how motorsport companies use network ties to share and recombine knowledge and the learning that occurs both at the organizational and dyadic network levels.

The paper adopts a qualitative and inductive approach with the aim of developing theory from an in‐depth examination of the dyadic ties between motorsport companies and the way they share and recombine knowledge.

The research shows that motorsport companies having substantial competences at managing knowledge flows do so by getting advantage of bridging ties. While bridging ties allow motorsport companies to reach distant and diverse sources of knowledge, their strengthening and the formation of relational capital facilitate the mediation and overlapping of that knowledge.

The analysis rests on a qualitative account in a single industry and does not take into account different types of inter‐firm networks (e.g. alliances; constellations; consortia etc.) and governance structures. Cross‐industry analyses may provide a more fine‐grained picture of the practices used to recombine knowledge and the ideal composition of inter‐firm ties.

This study provides some interesting implications for scholars and managers concerned with the management of innovation activities at the interfirm level. From a managerial point of view, the recognition of the different roles played by network spanning connections is particularly salient and raises issues concerning the effective design and management of interfirm ties.

Although much of the literature emphasizes the role of bridging ties in connecting to diverse pools of knowledge, this paper goes one step further and investigates in more depth how firms gather and combine distant and heterogeneous sources of knowledge through the use of strengthened bridging ties and a micro‐context conducive to high quality relationships.