Growing Technological Relatedness to the ICT Industry and Its Impacts

Subrahmanyam Aditya Karanam (), Deepa Mani () and Rajib L. Saha ()
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Subrahmanyam Aditya Karanam: Department of Information Systems and Analytics, School of Computing, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117417
Deepa Mani: Information Systems, Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, Telangana 500111, India
Rajib L. Saha: Information Systems, Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, Telangana 500111, India

Information Systems Research, 2025, vol. 36, issue 1, 344-369

Abstract: We create an intersectoral citation network using 1.3 million patents granted between 1981 and 2010 across all industries in the United States. In this network space, we find a significant increase over time in the proximity of non–information and communication technologies (ICT) industries to the ICT industry. Such “ICT-closeness” of an industry relates to a significant increase in the proportion of ICT technologies in the industry’s patent portfolio and complementarity between ICT and non-ICT patents in its portfolio. We hypothesize and find that ICT-Closeness has a significant positive impact on innovation outcomes of the citing industry, including innovative efficiency, recombinant capabilities, and creation of new products, services, and business methods. ICT-closeness also engenders hypercompetition in the citing industries, as reflected in greater winner-take-all dynamics and turbulence. Our results point to a paradigm shift in knowledge production, and in turn, sources of competitive value across diverse industries.

Keywords: innovation spillover; recombinant innovations; Schumpeterian competition; patent citation networks; exponential random graph models (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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