Influence of Interfirm Social Networks on Technological Innovation and its Time Lag Effect: a Meta-Analysis

The influence of interfirm social networks on technological innovation has been extensively studied in the previous literature. However, there are conflicting empirical results across past studies. To reveal the actual correlation and the influencing factors of the relationship between interfirm social networks and technological innovation, this study conducts a meta-analysis. The meta-analysis includes 56 evidence-based studies, 321 effect sizes, and 134,098 sample firms in total. According to social capital theory and the network properties, we classify the interfirm social network measuring constructs into three and five variables, respectively. The actual correlation between each variable and technological innovation and the heterogeneity of the correlation values are obtained. Additionally, the results of this study show that there is a significant time lag effect of interfirm social networks on technological innovation. Moreover, the results of the meta-analysis confirm that regional differences and industrial differences both have a significant moderating effect on the relationship between interfirm social networks and technological innovation.