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This study aims to investigate the influence of inventors’ abilities to acquire external knowledge, provide broad and professional knowledge and patenting output (i.e. different types of inventors) on the formation of structural holes.

The authors collected 59,798 patents applied for and granted in the USA by 33 of the largest firms worldwide in the pharmaceutical industry between 1975 and 2014. A random-effects tobit model was used to test the hypotheses.

The inventors’ ability to acquire external knowledge contributes to the formation of structural holes. While inventors’ ability to provide broad knowledge positively affects the formation of structural holes, their ability to provide professional knowledge works otherwise. In addition, key inventors and industrious inventors are more likely to form structural holes than talents.

The results identify individual factors that affect the formation of structural holes and improve the understanding of structural hole theory. This study is unique in that most scholars have studied the consequences of structural hole formation rather than their antecedents. Studies on the origin of structural holes neglect the effect of inventors’ knowledge abilities and patenting output. By addressing this gap, this study contributes to a more comprehensive theoretical understanding of structural holes. The results can guide managers in managing structural holes in accordance with inventors’ knowledge abilities and patenting outputs, which optimize the allocation of network resources.

This study aims to explore how coworkers leverage epistemic objects and guanxi (a Chinese term defining relationships based on mutual dependence) network to promote knowledge integration of “who knows what” in the development of sustainable innovation.

This study used a mixed-methods research approach, including quantitative questionnaires, social network analyses and a qualitative ethnography, all of which were collected from a large enterprise in China.

Epistemic objects can promote knowledge integration of “who knows what” among coworkers during their innovation development process. In addition, structural holes in a coworker network will impede knowledge integration of “who knows what,” but guanxi can turn this impeding effect into a facilitating effect.

First, the focus on the role of epistemic objects in eliciting knowledge generates implications for creating employee identity and coordinating knowledge heterogeneity. Second, by demonstrating how epistemic objects trigger both affective and cognitive trust to promote knowledge integration of “who knows what,” the authors complement existing studies of knowledge management (KM). Third, by presenting how coworkers fill their structural holes in their collaborative innovation, the study reveals the nature of connecting the appropriate resources with the appropriate needs, which generates implications for social capital integration and innovation enhancement. Fourth, by showing how “structural hole controllers” become “structural hole fillers” under different conditions, the authors recognize the different ways in which brokers leverage their structural holes and highlight the unique role of Chinese guanxi culture in triggering a structural hole filling behavior, thereby contributing to the literature of structural hole theory and culture management. Fifth, by creating a full picture of how coworkers strategically leverage their knowledge of “who knows what” in the development of sustainable innovation, the authors identify the influential factor that stimulates innovation, adding to the literature on the interaction between KM and innovation. Sixth, the emphasis on the independent role of epistemic objects produces an implication for the interplay between object-control and human-control in innovation work.

This study supports organizational leaders to make optimal decisions in their innovation development process by suggesting them to invest in developing an integrated knowledge of “who knows what.” To achieve it, the authors suggest managers make good use of non-human artifacts to gain the identification with the knowledge of not only themselves but also the whole team, and award the “integrator” an honor for filling structural holes that may trigger the creation of more structural hole fillers. Furthermore, the focus on the independent role of epistemic objects as knowledge elicitors and trust triggers in innovation work generates another practical implication for managers to rethink the controlling role of objects and humans in the organization and modify their managerial practices accordingly.

By exploring how coworkers leverage epistemic objects and guanxi network to promote knowledge integration of “who knows what” in the development of sustainable innovation, this study reveals the role of object-control and human-control in facilitating knowledge practices for stimulating innovation, thereby contributing to the literature of KM and innovation.

This study aims to explore how stakeholders leverage their guanxi and structural holes to promote knowledge mobilization to increase the performance of sci-tech achievement transformation.

This study conducted questionnaires, a social network analysis and semistructured interviews to examine its hypotheses by gathering data from a university and an enterprise in China.

Structural holes impede knowledge mobilization among stakeholders in their network, but guanxi moderates this impeding effect. In addition, knowledge mobilization promotes transformation performance.

By developing a mechanism to illustrate how stakeholders strategically leverage their guanxi and structural holes to affect the efficacy of knowledge mobilization to increase transformation performance, we reveal how stakeholders interact to co-create values for innovation, thereby contributing to the innovation and knowledge management literature.

This study aims to theorize and empirically examine how guanxi in Chinese collectivistic culture affects entrepreneurs to leverage the structural holes they occupy when it comes to promoting knowledge transfer.

To examine the hypotheses, this study used a mixed-methods research approach where quantitative questionnaires and social network analyses were used through 365 Chinese entrepreneurs, and qualitative semistructured interviews were conducted through 50 Chinese entrepreneurs.

In a Chinese entrepreneur’s guanxi network, structural holes will impede knowledge transfer among network members, but guanxi will moderate this impeding effect.

By revealing how “structural hole controllers” become “structural hole fillers” under the moderating influence of guanxi in Chinese collectivistic culture, this study recognizes the different roles that persons who occupy a structural hole play in different situations, which advances structural hole theory. In addition, by exploring how entrepreneurs orchestrate these structural holes to create a strong guanxi network that can be infinitely extended, this study reveals a means to achieve both advantages of bonding and bridging social capital simultaneously, which generates a theoretical contribution to social capital integration.

This study suggests Chinese entrepreneurs to cultivate guanxi to improve their needs in decision-making by giving renqing, returning renqing, earning mianzi and giving mianzi.

By showing how Chinese entrepreneurs leverage their guanxi and structural holes to facilitate knowledge transfer, this study identifies the critical entrepreneurial behavior that promotes business development, thereby contributing to the literature of knowledge management, entrepreneurship and social network.

The purpose of this paper is to study the influence mechanism of different levels of social capital (Structure holes–local network attributes and indirect ties–global network attributes) and organizational culture on the creativity of key inventors, and the role of organizational culture between social capital and creativity.

The paper tested the hypotheses with a sample of patent data accumulated from 46 firms in Chinese electronic information and automobile sectors. Negative binomial regression was used to explore the factors influencing the creativity of key inventors.

The paper discovers that structural holes are valuable social capital for the creativity of key inventors and very important in firms with a collective and conservative culture. Moreover, it also locates that key inventor are more creative in firms with an individualistic and competitive culture than those in firms with a collective and conservative culture.

This study emphasizes the influence of social capital on creativity and contributes to R&D management. It highlights structural holes are certainly important to key inventors in a collective and conservative culture, thus contradicting preceding studies that locate structural holes useful solely in an individualistic culture. This finding broadens our knowledge of the benefits of this network structure. Also, this debate challenges several basic views on structural holes currently.

This study aims to explore the relationship between financing constraints and the innovation performance of Internet enterprises in the cross-border innovation cooperation network. The study also analyzes the moderating effect of the location of the cross-border innovation cooperation network.

The authors selected patent data, related transaction data and other data of A-share listed companies on Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges from 2014 to 2019. The generalized moment estimation method of instrumental variables (IV-GMM) method was used to analyze the relationship between financing constraints and the innovation performance of Internet firms and the moderating effect of the cross-border innovation cooperation network location. The threshold value of the moderating effect of the network structure hole was calculated with the threshold model.

The empirical results show a significant inverted U-shaped relationship between financing constraints and the innovation performance in the cross-border innovation cooperation network of Internet enterprises. Network centrality positively moderates this relationship. There is a threshold for the adjustment effect of network-structural holes, and the adjustment intensity of structural holes changes before and after the threshold.

This study provides a new perspective for Internet firms in innovation cooperation networks to alleviate the negative impact of financing constraints on innovation performance. The inverted U-shaped relationship between financing constraints and the innovation performance of Internet enterprises is in two stages. The moderating range of network centrality and the structural hole besides the threshold of the moderating effect of a structural hole are detailed.

This paper examines the relationship between supply chain network structures and firm financial performance and the moderating role of international relations. In this study, which is grounded in social capital theory and applies the perspective of systemic risk, the authors theorize the effects of supply chain network structures on firm performance.

The authors extracted data from two Chinese databases and constructed a supply chain network of the firms concerned based on nearly 4,300 supply chain relations between 2009 and 2018. The authors adopted the fixed effects model to investigate the relationship between supply chain network structures and firm financial performance.

The econometrics results indicate that network structures, including the degree, centrality, clustering coefficients and structural holes, are significantly related to firm financial performance. A significant and negative relationship exists between international relations and firm financial performance. The authors also find that international relations strongly weaken the relationship between supply chain network structures and firm financial performance.

This study, which collects secondary data from developing countries (e.g. China) and explores the impacts of supply chain network structures on firm stock performance, contributes to the existing literature and provides practical implications.

Doctor–medical institution collaboration (DMIC) services are an emerging service mode in focal online health communities (OHCs). This new service mode is anticipated to affect user satisfaction and doctors' engagement behaviors. However, whether and how DMIC occurs is still ambiguous because the topic is rarely examined. To bridge this gap, this study explores doctors' participation in DMIC services and its effects on their online performance, as well as its effect on patients' evaluation of them on OHC platforms.

The authors propose hypotheses based on structural holes theory. A unique dataset obtained from one of the most popular OHCs in China is used to test the hypotheses, and difference-in-differences estimation is adopted to test the causality of the relationship.

The results demonstrate that providing DMIC services improves doctors' online consultation performance and patients' evaluations of them but has no significant effect on doctors' knowledge-sharing performance on OHC platforms. Doctors' knowledge-sharing performance and consultation performance mediate the relationship between participation in DMIC services and patients' evaluation of doctors. Regarding doctors' participation in DMIC services, its impact on doctors' consultation performance and patients' evaluation of them is weaker for doctors with higher professional titles than for doctors with lower professional titles.

The findings clarify the value creation mechanisms of online collaboration between doctors and medical institutions and thereafter facilitate doctors' participation in DMIC services and enhance the sustainable development of OHCs.

Firms embedded in networks of relations are theorized through Gnyawali and Madhavan’s (2001) (G&M) structural embeddedness model to gain competitive advantage from topological characteristics. Empirical studies to support their theory have never been executed in full. Our study provided a full empirical test of their model in a digital trading network to achieve a higher degree of certainty that those network structural characteristics can have a major impact on the degree to which certain firms lead to competitiveness in a digital trading network environment.

To examine how firms respond in competitive situations, we chose the hyper-active digital trading network, eBay as our empirical context. We used eBay auction data to analyze how the network characteristics of eBay resellers impact their competitive behaviors.

Our study found strong support for the G&M model of competitiveness. We offer explanations for where support was not as strong as the Gynawali and Madavan theory proposes.

Our research is limited by our chosen context and findings in support of part of G&M model. Future studies in other digital contexts are needed to enhance the modeling of network topologies and further study the impacts of network density and structural autonomy on competitive action.

Our study suggests that managers proceed cautiously in forming partnerships, weighing circumstances where the firm can find itself with increased information power and avoiding, to the greatest extent possible, situations where the playing field is roughly equal.

Theory-making in this domain has begun as well as initial empirical testing. Much more needs to be accomplished, though, before embeddedness modeling can be thought of as being well established.

The G& M Model of competitiveness is an SNA explanation of why some competitive units succeed and others do not. Our study is the first, full blown empirical analysis of the theory.

This study investigates the extent to which a firm’s centrality and autonomy in its supply network are associated with the intensity and complexity of its competitive actions.

Utilizing social network analysis and dynamic panel data models, this study analyzes a comprehensive panel dataset with 10,802 firm-year observations across various industries between 2011 and 2018 to test the hypotheses.

Our findings show that a firm’s level of centrality in its supply network has an inverted U-shaped relationship with both competitive intensity and competitive complexity. In addition, the turning points of these two inverted U-shaped relationships differ in that firms with a lower level of centrality tend to compete aggressively by launching more actions within fewer categories, while firms with a higher level of centrality tend to compete aggressively by launching fewer actions that cover a larger range of categories. Finally, we find that a firm’s structural autonomy has a positive relationship with competitive complexity.

This study bridges the gap between the supply chain management literature and strategic management literature and investigates how supply networks shape competitive aggressiveness. In particular, this research investigates how a firm’s structural position in its supply network affects its competitive actions, an important intermediate mechanism for competitive advantage that has been overlooked in the supply chain management literature.