Dilemma in Individual Collaboration for Invention: Should We be Similar or Diverse in Knowledge?

Dong Huo and Kazuyuki Motohashi

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: This study integrates theories relevant to collaborative knowledge creation and provides evidence to discover effects of knowledge diversity on collaborative knowledge creation. The analysis uses a sample comprising 38,500 granted U.S. utility patents involving two collaborating inventors, from application year 1991 to 2005. Interindividual knowledge diversity is thought to affect collaborative knowledge creation in three dimensions: increasing probability of excellent ideas, increasing probability of disagreements, and lowering knowledge assimilation. Furthermore, these impacts are conditional on two proposed moderators: technology scope and affiliation scope. Empirical evidence supports the positive effect of knowledge diversity weakening as the scope of technology broadens. The effect also differs depending upon whether the collaboration occurs between organizations, within one organization, or outside any organization.

Keywords: invention; collaboration; knowledge diversity; knowledge quality; technology scope; affiliation scope (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O31 O32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cse, nep-ino, nep-ipr, nep-pr~, nep-knm and nep-sbm
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:56185

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