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| Effect of Weak Ties Based on Patent Collaboration Network |
| Wu Keye1,2, Sun Jianjun1,2, Zhang Zihan1,2 |
1.Laboratory of Data Intelligence and Interdisciplinary Innovation, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023
2.School of Information Management, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023 |
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Abstract Collaborative research and development (R&D) is widely recognized as an effective method to enhance the efficiency of corporate technological innovation by promoting the flow and sharing of innovation factors. Previous studies pertaining to collaboration and technological innovation performance are primarily limited to the R&D subject level and focus only on the node attributes of individual R&D organizations in the collaboration network, whereas their linkage characteristics are not considered. Inspired by the theory of weak ties in social networks, this study constructs a year-by-year collaboration network based on all collaborative patents in the field of pharmaceuticals up to 2015 to investigate whether a weak-linking effect exists in R&D collaboration networks. Specifically, considering each cooperative patent as the research object, this study first calculates the link-strength index of each pair of cooperative organizations in the previous cooperative network and distinguishes between strong and weak links accordingly. Second, link status and link strength are regarded as explanatory variables; patent influence, disruptiveness, and market value are regarded as explanatory variables; and regression analysis is performed to investigate the effect of the strength of cooperative relationships on the innovation performance of patent outputs. Descriptive statistics show that the top 25% of the innovation performance indicators of patents generated by weak-link cooperation are higher than those generated by strong-link cooperation, thus indicating that weak-link cooperation is more likely to yield high-value patents. Regression results show that both link status and link strength adversely affect patent disruptiveness, whereas they contribute positively to patent impact and market value. This suggests that weak cooperative links are conducive to enhancing patent disruptiveness and transcending technological bottlenecks. However, they are not adapted to the existing technological system, and their market introduction is marked by high resistance. Only the establishment of a strong, solid linkage cooperation relationship can result in a cooperation output with practical application value and expand the technical influence and market value.
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Received: 01 April 2024
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