Knowledge structure, network structure, exploitative and exploratory innovations

ABSTRACT

Taking the data of 20,863 patents in the field of Artificial Intelligence between 2000 and 2018 as an example, this paper examined the relationships among organisations’ knowledge structure, network structure, exploratory innovation and exploitative innovation. The results show that organisations’ knowledge combinatorial potential and knowledge diversity have positive effects on both exploratory innovation and exploitative innovation. Organisations’ degree centrality and structural holes in the collaboration network can partly mediate the relationships between their knowledge structure and exploratory and exploitative innovations.

KEYWORDS:

• Knowledge structure
• network structure
• exploratory innovation
• exploitative innovation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Zhengang Zhang is a professor at the School of Business Administration, South China University of Technology. He received his Ph. D. in management science in 2002 from South China University of Technology. His research interests include technology forecasting, strategic management, and regional innovation.

Taiye Luo is a Ph. D. student at the School of Business Administration, South China University of Technology. His research interests include technology forecasting, information management and information systems.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the Major Projects of National Social Science Foundation of China [grant number 18ZDA062].