Knowledge networks, collaboration networks, and innovation: a replication and extension

Firms’ innovation is doubly embedded within a collaboration network of inventors and a network of knowledge elements. To assess the distinct effects of firms’ dual-networks on innovation at different life stages of the firm, this paper replicates and extends the study of Wang, Rodan, Fruin, and Xu (2014), examining whether their argument of decoupling relationship of knowledge and collaboration network remains consistent in a differing temporal context. Using patent data from a worldwide microprocessor manufacturer from 1986 to 2006, we first verify their conclusion using the same data and time set, but we find a shift in this decoupling relationship with an expanded dataset at different observation window of the same firm. By offering a process view, we explain why observation window makes a difference in the distinct patterns of coupling and decoupling relationship of collaboration and knowledge network, and present intriguing new empirical evidence highlighting the importance of time as a boundary condition in understanding the different but equivalently crucial role of social network and knowledge network on firms’ innovation activities.