Collaboration Networks and Inventor’s Creativity: The Interplay Between Knowledge and Brokerage

This chapter investigates how access to heterogeneous knowledge affects the relationship between brokerage and novelty of inventor’s output. I distinguish between structural advantages brought by brokerage and those brought by diversity of knowledge coming from the collaboration network and scrutinize their effects on the level of novelty embedded in inventor’s output. I use panel data of French inventors and examine the within-subject variation over time. Results suggest that the influence of being a broker on the novelty of an inventor’s output is moderated by the level of knowledge heterogeneity accessed through disconnected collaborators. Results highlight that on the one hand, being exposed to heterogeneous knowledge compensates the costs of brokerage. On the other hand, being a broker significantly complements exposure to heterogeneous knowledge. At the same time, I observe that higher levels of brokerage create a negative effect on the novelty of an inventor’s output despite its strategic advantages. Negative effects might be there also for low levels of brokerage, but those outweigh the advantages only for the high levels of brokerage. On the contrary, being a broker becomes more advantageous within non-redundant content collaboration networks. The study contributes to the social network literature and develops a deeper understanding of the brokerage’s influence on inventors’ creativity.