Competitor-Weighted Centrality and Small-World Clusters in Competition Networks on Firms’ Innovation Ambidexterity: Evidence from the Wind Energy Industry

A firm’s embedding structures in a technology competition network can influence its propensity for innovation ambidexterity. Using PCT (patent cooperation treaty) patent data of wind energy companies between 2010 and 2019, we adopted social network analysis and fixed-effects panel negative binomial regression to examine the impacts of network structural features on firm innovation ambidexterity. The results show that competitor-weighted centrality contributes to a firm’s propensities for both incremental and radical green innovation. In contrast, a firm’s embeddedness in small-world clusters can moderate the effect of the firm’s competitor-weighted centrality positively on its incremental innovation but negatively on its radical innovation. The study makes three theoretical contributions. First, it enriches the understanding of how the competition network affects innovation ambidexterity. Second, it provides new insights into the relationship between competition network structures and technology innovation strategy. Finally, it contributes to bridging the research on the social embeddedness perspective and green innovation literature. The findings of this study have important implications for enterprises in the wind energy sector regarding how competitive relationships affect green technology innovation. The study underscores the importance of considering the competitiveness of a firm’s rivals and the embedded structural features when devising green innovation strategies.