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Knowledge search is considered a broad concept and semi-intentional behavior. The path and boundary conditions through which search strategies affect intra-organizational knowledge creation remain elusive. Drawing on recombinant search theory and knowledge-based view, the authors seek to identify knowledge complexity as an important intermediate variable between knowledge search and innovation performance, such as research and development (R&D) output and R&D output quality. A second goal of this study is to examine the moderating roles of government support and technological turbulence.

The authors employed a longitudinal panel of 609 global pharmaceutical firms and obtained the firms' patent records from 1980 to 2015 for the analysis. The authors used generalized estimating equations (GEE) to evaluate the models and tested the consistency via panel fixed-effects estimations.

The authors' findings show that organizational routine-guided search has a negative effect on knowledge complexity, while routine-changing search exerts a positive impact on knowledge complexity. Governmental support and technological turbulence moderate these relationships. Notably, knowledge complexity has an inverted U-shaped relationship with innovation performance.

The authors' research context, the pharmaceutical industry, may constrain the generalizability of our findings. In addition, potential types of routine-guided and routine-changing search behaviors were not considered.

Despite these limitations, this study offers important implications. First, knowledge complexity transmits the effects of knowledge search on innovation performance. Practitioners should balance routine-guided and routine-changing search processes to build and manage complex knowledge. Second, a moderate level of knowledge complexity is the key to good R&D output and R&D output quality.

The study identifies knowledge complexity as one important intermediate variable between knowledge search behaviors and intra-organizational knowledge creation.

Purpose – The chapter investigates the effects of knowledge on economic growth at the regional level.

Methodology/approach – We elaborate a view on knowledge as the result of a combinatorial search activity and implement indicators synthesizing the network architecture of knowledge structure.

Findings – Empirical estimations corroborate the hypothesis that knowledge coherence and variety, besides the traditional measure of knowledge stock, matter in shaping regional economic performances.

Social implications – Important policy implications stem from the analysis, in that regional innovation strategies, to trigger economic performances, should be carefully coordinated so as to foster exploration strategies, but taking into full account the technological competences accumulated in the course of time.

Originality/value of the paper – The originality of the chapter lies mainly in the methodological approach, which provides operational translation to the view of knowledge as an outcome of a combinatorial search. In this perspective, the chapter also sheds light on previously unexplored aspects of the relationships between knowledge and growth.

Although collaborative research is believed to be an important means of accessing external knowledge, research on whether taking a strategic network position benefits new product development (NPD) is inconclusive. This study aims to unravel the conditions under which taking a strategic position within a collaborative research network is conducive for a firm’s NPD.

Drawing on social network theory, absorptive capacity theory and knowledge recombinant studies, this study examines how strategic network positions (i.e. degree centrality and structural holes) and knowledge base cohesion (i.e. local and global cohesion) in tandem affect a firm’s NPD. A panel data set of 366 firms in the Chinese automobile sector (2002–2010) is empirically analyzed, using the panel negative binomial approach with random effects and several alternate estimation approaches.

This study reveals that, rather than the volume of a firm’s knowledge base, its cohesion determines how it absorbs and uses knowledge accrued from collaborative research for NPD. Specifically, this paper finds that centrally positioned firms have greater NPD when their knowledge bases are locally cohesive, while firms spanning structural holes have more NPD when their knowledge bases are globally cohesive.

Successfully transferring collaborative research outcomes into product innovation is difficult. This study contributes to the literature on strategic network positions and NPD. The findings advance the understanding of knowledge base cohesion’s moderating role in explaining how firms absorb and exploit external knowledge for internal innovation. The findings also have important implications for managers who wish to promote product innovation by engaging in collaborative research with external partners.

Technological standardization can promote the development of complex products and systems (CoPS) (e.g. large aircraft, high-speed trains). Many studies argue that a superior network position contributes to improving a firm's ability to innovate; however, few studies have considered the aforementioned line of research as falling under the purview of CoPS standardization. This study focuses on CoPS integrators, which hold the most important enterprise roles in CoPS manufacturing and innovation, to analyze whether the two types of superior positions (i.e. the central position and the brokerage position) help the integrator influence the standardization process in a process moderated by technological complexity.

Considering the outstanding market performance of the railway transportation industry in China, the abundance of cooperative activities in this industry, and data availability, we adopt integrators from this industry as samples for the empirical analysis in this study. A negative binomial regression analysis with random effects was conducted to analyze the acquired panel data.

The results show that the central position has an inverted U-shaped effect on the integrator's ability to influence standardization and that the brokerage position has a positive effect. We also find that the underlying mechanism of the two types of network positions impacts the integrator's ability to influence standardization and that it has two modes: knowledge integration in related domains and knowledge integration in nonrelated domains. Moreover, technological complexity attenuates the effect of the central position and strengthens the effect of the brokerage position on the integrator's ability to influence standardization.

This paper contributes to the theoretical research on CoPS manufacturing and innovation and complements knowledge-based theory. The results could prove enlightening for integrators facing complex technological environments, allowing them to establish a reasonable external knowledge search strategy and choose appropriate cooperation partners according to their knowledge domains.

This paper aims to provide a holistic view to support the choice of appropriate strategy for conducting a knowledge transfer (KT) project in an international manufacturing network (IMN) environment. It proposes a model that includes multiple aspects of a KT project along with guidelines on each aspect.

To achieve the research goals, multiple case study method was adopted. Data have been collected by conducting semi-structured interviews regarding five KT projects in three multinational corporations. Data were triangulated by means of comparisons to complementary data acquired through observations and archival documents.

The results of this paper detail the key issues of five KT projects. Furthermore, the paper proposes an aggregated model comprising the main aspects and strategies for a KT project within an IMN.

Despite the abundant research on KT area, not many research projects provide holistic views on KT process. The focus has rather been sectional and concentrated on each specific aspect within the KT.

The paper guides practitioners to identify multiple aspects in KT that will eventually increase the odds for successfully performing such projects.

The proposed learning network model improves the performance of KT projects by providing a holistic view including several factors that the organization should emphasize to succeed with inter-plant KT.

Shifting focus from innovation quantity to innovation quality becomes a priority in innovation study, business and policy. This paper aims to figure out whether and how knowledge recombination (recombinant exploration/recombinant exploitation) affects firms' innovation quality (technological value/economic value) and how these relationships are moderated by environmental turbulence (technological turbulence/market turbulence) in the context of open innovation.

A panel data set is built on 373 Chinese pharmaceutical firms' patents and new product data from 1997 to 2020. And a negative binomial regression model is applied to test the hypotheses.

The analyses indicate that (1) recombinant exploration favors technological value but hinders economic value, while (2) recombinant exploitation benefits both. Regarding environmental turbulence's moderating effects, (3) technological turbulence has opposite moderating effects on the impacts of recombinant exploration versus exploitation on technological value, whereas (4) market turbulence benefits the impacts of both on economic value.

This research provides the answer to practitioners' question that “How to improve innovation quality?” That is “Think from a recombination logic, clarify your internal value preference and the external turbulence.”

From an emerging perspective of innovation, this research expands the innovation quality research to a recombination logic. A multi-dimensional research framework is developed to clarify the complex relationships between knowledge recombination and innovation quality. Finally, two moderators, technological versus market turbulence, formulate more targeted implications for firms' innovation management in open innovation.

To reconcile the existing contradictory conclusions on the relationship between cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As) and innovation, this paper aims to propose a theoretical model of the impact of cross-border M&As on technological innovation and explore the moderating role of institutional distance from the perspective of springboard theory and new institutional theory.

Through the use of the two-way fixed effect model and the U-test method, the authors test the hypotheses based on a sample of cross-border M&A events of Chinese manufacturing enterprises during the period from 2006 to 2019.

The research shows that there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between cross-border M&As and technological innovation. Furthermore, formal institutional distance moderates the inverted U-shaped relationship in such a way that it reaches its turning point at a smaller scale of cross-border M&As, and the inverted U-shaped relationship is steeper when formal institutional distance is relatively high. The informal institutional distance moderates the inverted U-shaped relationship in such a way that it reaches its turning point at a larger scale of cross-border M&As and the inverted U-shaped relationship is flatter when the informal institutional distance is relatively high.

The research conclusions integrate heterogeneous views of the existing research, further clarify the influence mechanism and boundary conditions between cross-border M&As and technological innovation, identify the different moderating roles of formal institutional distance and informal institutional distance and enrich the literature on knowledge transfer and recombinant innovation during post-merger integration.

Prior literature has long argued that knowledge networks contain great opportunities for innovation, and researchers can identify these opportunities using the properties of knowledge networks (PKNs). However, previous studies have examined only the relationship between structural PKNs (s-PKNs) and innovation, ignoring the effect of qualitative PKNs (q-PKNs), which refer to the quality of the relationship between two elements. This study aims to further investigate the effects of q-PKNs on innovation.

Using a panel data set of 2,255 patents from the Chinese wind energy industry, the authors construct knowledge networks to identify more PKNs and examine these hypotheses.

The results show that q-PKNs significantly influence recombinant innovation (RI), reflecting the importance of q-PKNs analysed in this study. Moreover, the results suggest that the combinational potential of an element with others may be huge at different levels of q-PKNs.

This study advances the understanding of PKNs and RI by exploring how q-PKNs impact RI. At different levels of PKNs, the potential of the elements to combine with others and form innovation are different. Researchers can more accurately identify the opportunities for RI using two kinds of PKNs. The findings also provide important implications on how government should provide support for R&D firms.

The sources of collagens and gelatins are recently being questioned because it sourced from porcine or non-halal slaughtered animals. There are also concerns regarding the transfer of diseases from animal sources of collagen to human users. This study aims to propose an alternative source of collagen using recombinant collagen-like protein (halal-based) and to analyze factors contribute to the probability of using this alternative source of collagen among consumers in Malaysia.

Survey data collected are tested empirically using statistical tools and logistic regression.

This study finds two important inferences. First, the probability consumers opt for the alternative source of collagen is significantly determined by age of consumers and the level of their incomes. The likelihood of the consumers to opt for this alternative source of collagen is higher among elderly and lower income consumers. Second, the probability of using this alternative source of collagen with the purpose to protect the marine life is higher among young and lower income consumers. Thus, marketing variations of a product using this alternative source of collagen that is targeted to high age bracket and low income group of consumers often sees as a good strategy as compared with a more generalized marketing strategy. The younger consumers are also among potential consumers whose concern is more on health without endangering marine species or biodiversity.

The scope of areas in this study is limited to Klang Valley (Selangor and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia). The respondents are those staying and working in these areas regardless of citizenship and ethnicity.

This study is proposing a new and promising way for mass production of collagen using recombinant collagen-like protein. Collagen-like protein was found in bacteria, and it may represent an alternative biosynthetic collagen material which is expected to be an alternative of the existing sources which are non-halal and endanger biodiversity and ecosystem.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the individual effects of boundary-spanning search from suppliers (supplier-side search (SS)). It is proposed that SS contributes to innovation ambidexterity (IA) and then business performance (BP). Further, this paper includes buyer–supplier relationships (BSRs) and competitive intensity (CI) as moderators to clarify boundary conditions.

An ordinary least squares regression was employed to test hypotheses, based on 184 sets of data from Hong Kong manufacturing firms. The SPSS version of PROCESS was utilized.

The results show that IA partially mediates the relationship between SS and BP. Contingently, the direct effect is negatively moderated by BSRs and CI.

This paper confirms the partial mediating effect of IA on the relationship between SS and BP. Additional mediators, such as organizational innovation and marketing innovation, can be examined in the future.

This paper contributes to practice by suggesting that suppliers are a rewarding single source for firms to undertake boundary-spanning search. IA plays a significant role in reinforcing the effects of SS on BP and should be implemented with sustaining efforts. BSRs and CI can be detrimental and should be responded to cautiously.

This paper highlights the individual effects of SS on BP. Furthermore, the underlying process and boundary conditions are analyzed. The exploitation-exploration framework is applied throughout the entire study.