The centrality and innovation performance of the quantum high-level innovation team: the moderating effect of structural holes

As a frontier area with a high threshold, quantum science research is often undertaken by high-level innovation teams. Previous work has rarely studied the impact of structured positions found in the network of high-level innovation teams on innovation. This area represents an important gap in our understanding given whether the central position in the network of high-level innovation teams is conducive to innovation and whether there are interactions between structural characteristics in the network. This article attempts to study the network characteristics of quantum innovation teams and their impacts on innovation performance. In this study, three quantum high-level innovation teams (Jianwei Pan, Guangcan Guo and Jiangfeng Du) of the University of Science and Technology of China were selected as research objects, and panel data for 143 researchers for 2010 to 2019 were constructed. We draw the following interesting conclusions. The degree centrality, closeness centrality and between centrality of the quantum high-level innovation team network have a positive impact on a team’s innovation performance. Structural holes have no direct effect on innovation but actively moderate the positive impact of the three centralities on innovation performance.