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How Does Inter-Organizational Cooperation Impact Organizations’ Scientific Knowledge Generation? Evidence from the Biomass Energy Field

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  • Liu Li

    (School of Economics and Management, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China)

  • Chaoying Tang

    (School of Economics and Management, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China)

Abstract

Previous studies have demonstrated that accessing external knowledge is important for organizations’ knowledge generation. The main purpose of this study is to investigate how the diversity and amount of organizations’ external scientific knowledge influence their scientific knowledge generation. We also consider the moderating effect of the redundant industrial scientific knowledge and the amount of technical knowledge from external technical cooperators. The social network analysis method is used to establish both ego- and industrial-scientific cooperation network, and ego-technical cooperation network in order to analyze the external scientific knowledge and technical knowledge. The empirical analysis is based on patent and article data of 106 organizations in the biomass energy industry (including firms, universities and research institutes), and the results show that organizations’ structural holes and degree centrality of scientific cooperation network have positive effects on their scientific knowledge generation. In addition, organizations’ degree centrality of technical cooperation network positively moderates the relationship between their degree centrality of scientific cooperation network and scientific knowledge generation. Furthermore, density of industrial scientific cooperation network decreases the positive effect of organizations’ structural holes on their scientific knowledge generation, while it strengthens the positive effect of degree centrality of scientific cooperation network on their scientific knowledge generation. Academic contributions and practical suggestions are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Liu Li & Chaoying Tang, 2020. "How Does Inter-Organizational Cooperation Impact Organizations’ Scientific Knowledge Generation? Evidence from the Biomass Energy Field," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(1), pages 1-18, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2020:i:1:p:191-:d:469252
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