Research Network Position and Innovative Performance: Evidence from the Pharmaceutical Industry

Maureen McKelvey () and Bastian Rake
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Maureen McKelvey: University of Gothenburg, Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, School of Business, Economics and Law

No 2012-021, Jena Economics Research Papers from Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena

Abstract: This paper explores how and why collaboration with different types of partners and the position within a research network can affect firms' innovative performance in terms of product innovations. A detailed empirical analysis is carried out in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry. This industry is characterized by a rapidly developing, complex, and dispersed knowledge base, where one would expect positive benefits from collaboration and the position within a network for innovative output. The paper uses a unique dataset in pharmaceutical cancer research based on scientific co-publications and new drug approvals. We apply social network analysis and count data regressions. We observe that collaboration with a diverse set of partners from academia and the network position in terms of eigenvector centrality is positively related to product innovation. However, we do not find a general positive association between collaboration, particularly with biotechnology companies, and product innovation or between central network positions and product innovation. Therefore, these results require a re-assessment of the role of scientific collaboration and biotechnology companies in the development of the pharmaceutical industry.

Keywords: Research Networks; Research Collaboration; Innovative Performance; Pharmaceuticals (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L25 O31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012-05-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-com, nep-cse, nep-hme, nep-ino, nep-ipr, nep-pr~, nep-net and nep-sbm
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:jrp:jrpwrp:2012-021

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