Does repetition equal more of the same? tie strength and thematic orientation in R&D networks

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 19; no. 5; p. e0303912
• Main Authors: Yankova, Dima, D'Este, Pablo, García-Melón, Mónica
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 23-05-2024
• Subjects: Biology and Life Sciences; Collaboration; Computational linguistics; Cooperative Behavior; Ecology and Environmental Sciences; Empirical analysis; Engineering and Technology; Exploitation; Humans; Innovations; Language processing; Natural language interfaces; Organizations; Physical Sciences; R&D; Research & development; Social capital; Social Sciences; Spain; Tacit knowledge; Spain
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0303912

Despite organizations' documented tendency to repeat research collaborations with prior partners, scholarly understanding on the implications of recurring interactions for the content of the collaboration has been fairly limited. This paper investigates whether and under what conditions organizations use repeated research partnerships to explore new topics, as opposed to deepening their expertise in a single one (exploitation). The empirical analysis is based on the Spanish region of Valencia and its publicly funded R&D network. Employing lexical similarity to compare the topic and content of project abstracts, we find that strong ties are not always associated with the exploitation of the same topic. Yet, exploration is more likely when at least one of the partners mobilizes a network of distinct contacts and can access novel knowledge.