Gianluca Carnabuci

Knowledge Specialization, Knowledge Brokerage and the Uneven Growth of Technology Domains

Why do certain domains of knowledge grow fast while others grow slowly or stagnate? Two distinct theoretical arguments hold that knowledge growth is enhanced by knowledge specialization and knowledge brokerage. Based on the notion of recombinant knowledge growth, we show that specialization and brokerage are opposing modes of knowledge generation, the difference between them lying in the extent to which homogeneous vs. heterogeneous input ideas get creatively recombined. Accordingly, we investigate how both modes of knowledge generation can enhance the growth of technology domains. To address this question, we develop an argument that reconciles both specialization and brokerage into a dynamic explanation. Our contention is that specializing in an increasingly homogeneous set of input ideas is both more efficient and less risky than brokering knowledge. Nevertheless, specializing implies progressively exhausting available recombinant possibilities, while brokerage creates new ones. Hence, technology domains tend to grow faster when they specialize, but the more specialized they become, the more they need knowledge brokerage to grow. We cast out our argument into five hypotheses that predict how growth rates vary across technology domains.

Public Knowledge, Private Gain The Effect of Spillover Networks on Firms’ Innovative Performance

Complementing received research on the role of collaboration networks in fostering interorganizational learning and innovation, the authors focus on the importance of learning from other firms’ public knowledge. To this end they introduce the concept of spillover network—the network of “source” firms whose public knowledge a “recipient” firm is able to readily absorb and use as innovation input. Using patent-based data on a panel of semiconductor firms between 1976 and 2002, the authors demonstrate that firms’ innovative performance tends to be higher when their spillover network is either munificent or rich in structural holes. However, being exposed to a spillover network that is both munificent and rich in structural holes is generally counterproductive. Consistent with the insight that the value of external knowledge inputs depends on the firm-level resources with which it can be bundled, furthermore, the authors argue that the extent to which firms benefit from their spillover network hinges on specific intraorganizational factors—their scientific intensity and degree of downstream integration.

The Ecology of Technological Progress: How Symbiosis and Competition Affect the Growth of Technology Domains

We show that the progress of technological knowledge is an inherently ecological process, wherein the growth rate of each technology domain depends on dynamics occurring in other technology domains. We identify two sources of ecological interdependence among technology domains. First, there are symbiotic interdependencies, implying that the rate of growth of one technology domain is driven by the advances made in other technology domains. Second, some technology domains compete with each other, implying that the rate at which a given technology domain advances varies inversely with the competitive pressure it receives from other technology domains. Based on all the technological knowledge patented in the United States between 1975 and 1999, we find statistical support for our argument and hypotheses.

Risky Recombinations: Institutional Gatekeeping in the Innovation Process

Theories of innovation and technical change posit that inventions that combine knowledge across technology domains have greater impact than inventions drawn from a single domain. The evidence for this claim comes mostly from research on patented inventions and ignores failed patent applications. We draw on insights from research into institutional gatekeeping to theorize that, to be granted, patent applications that span technological domains must be better than otherwise-comparable, narrower applications. Using data on failed and successful patent applications, we estimate an integrated, two-stage model that accounts for differential selection. We find that more domain-spanning patent applications are less likely to be approved, and that controlling for this differential selection reduces the estimated effect of knowledge recombination on innovation impact by about a third. By conceptualizing the patent-approval process as a form of institutional gatekeeping, this paper highlights the institutional underpinnings of and constraints on the innovation process.

How Do Brokers Broker? Tertius Gaudens, Tertius Iungens, and the Temporality of Structural Holes

Organizational network research has demonstrated that multiple benefits accrue to people occupying brokerage positions. However, the extant literature offers scant evidence of the process postulated to drive such benefits (information brokerage) and therefore leaves unaddressed the question of how brokers broker. We address this gap by examining the information-brokerage interactions in which actors engage. We argue that the information-brokerage strategies of brokers differ in three critical ways from those of actors embedded in denser network positions. First, brokers more often broker information via short-term interactions with colleagues outside their network of long-term relationships, a process we label “unembedded brokerage.” Second, when they engage in unembedded brokerage, brokers are more likely than are actors in dense network positions to intermediate the flow of information between the brokered parties, consistent with a tertius gaudens strategy. Conversely, and third, when they broker information via their network of long-term ties (embedded brokerage), brokers are more likely than are densely connected actors to facilitate a direct information exchange between the brokered parties, consistent with a tertius iungens strategy. Using a relational event model, we find support for our arguments in an empirical analysis of email communications among employees in a medium-sized, knowledge-intensive organization, as well as in a replication study. The theory and evidence we present advance a novel, temporal perspective on how brokers broker, which reconciles structural and process views of network brokerage. Our findings substantiate the notion of brokers as a dynamic force driving change in organizational networks, and they help to integrate within a unitary explanatory framework tertius iungens and tertius gaudens views of brokerage.

The Categorical Imperative and Structural Reproduction: Dynamics of Technological Entry in the Semiconductor Industry

Extant organizational literature argues that straddling institutionalized categories begets an illegitimacy discount, leading organizations to reproduce established categorical boundaries. If gaining legitimacy requires compliance with this “categorical imperative,” why do we frequently observe categorical straddling even in uncontested and fully institutionalized categorical structures? To address this question, we propose that de novo (i.e., newly founded) and de alio (i.e., diversifying) organizations respond differently to the categorical imperative. Specifically, de novo organizations are more likely to enter and fit in high-contrast categories than in low-contrast ones, whereas the opposite is true for de alio entrants. To test these hypotheses, we follow technological entry dynamics within the semiconductor industry between 1976 and 2002. Using patent information, we examine how category contrast affects which technological categories de novo and de alio organizations enter, and the performance ass...

A note on structural holes theory and niche overlap

Diffuse competition due to niche overlap between actors without (direct) ties with each other, constrains their structural autonomy. This is not dealt with in Burt’s mathematical model of his well-known structural holes theory. We fix his model by introducing a network measure of niche overlap.

The evolving structure of the technological landscape

In this paper, we set out to analyse the evolving structure of the technological landscape on which our knowledge-based economies thrive. To this end, we develop a network-analytic model, which we use to characterise and study the evolving pattern of citations among all patents granted in the USA from 1975 to 1999. We find that (i) the structure of knowledge spillovers among technology domains features the distinguishing properties of a small world topology. However, (ii) during the 25 years observed there has been a consistent trend away from the small world topology, which (iii) is entirely explained by the disappearance of specialties encompassing multiple tightly interconnected technology domains. Our findings bear important strategic implications for both managers and policy makers.

Relational schemas to investigate the process of leadership emergence

Distancing itself from the traditional focus of leadership research on the behaviors and traits characteristic of “leaders,” the paper argues that leaders emerge out of a process of social construc...