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Scientific research increasingly involves the active participation of a diverse range of actors across different fields of science and beyond the academic spheres. In this paper, we seek to understand how the informal networks established by scientists provide access to a variety of resources that contribute to idea generation. We analyse informal networks from two complementary approaches: the compositional perspective (based on the heterogeneity of actors involved in informal networks) and the relational perspective (based on the properties of the links to network members). Our data draws on a large-scale survey to biomedical scientists. Biomedicine represents a suitable context for this study due to the expected potential for knowledge generation from collaboration among multiple actors (e.g. basic and clinical researchers, health professionals, patients, industry practitioners, etc.). The study proposes an analytical network framework and provides granular data to understand the process of resource mobilisation towards knowledge generation in open science practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper builds upon the intense and ongoing debate on whether and under which conditions network structures characterized by closure or structural holes support knowledge generation. In contrast to most of the existing literature we take the interplay between network structure and actor diversity in terms of actors' knowledge domains into account. Our empirical analysis uses a unique dataset of investigator teams in clinical trials and their publication activities. Our preliminary results do not suggest a clear-cut association between bridging structural holes and trial related publication activities. While network closure within investigator teams may negatively affect publication outcomes, closure acts as an enabling factor for the interpretation and application of diverse knowledge within investigator teams which supports the emergence of trial related publications. These findings have important implications for managers in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry with respect to the composition of investigators teams as well as for the emerging concept of translation research intended to promote knowledge generation and innovative activities in these industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates two facets of the science base - industry linkages. We develop a rationale to conceptualize U-I interactions in terms of the type of contractual agreement and the degree of finalization. This allows us to distinguish between four modes of U-I interaction: firm creation, technology transfer, co-production, and response modes. We then examine whether scientific stardom and research interdisciplinarity predict the propensity of scientists to interact with any of the four interaction modes. Our empirical results suggest significant effects of scientific impact and interdisciplinarity on university-industry interactions, but largely dependent on the interaction mode. Scientific impact has significant positive effect on technology transfer only beyond a particular threshold; it has a negative effect on the response mode; and no significant effect on firm creation or co-production modes. In contrast, interdisciplinary research has a strong positive impact on the two entrepreneurial-related modes: firm creation and technology transfer. We draw on a sample of 1,180 scientists from the Spanish Council for Scientific Research (CSIC), the largest public research organization in Spain, covering all scientific fields - physics, engineering, biomedicine, social sciences and humanities. We combine primary data from a large scale survey, bibliometric data on scientists' publications and administrative data on scientists' past interactions with industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exploration is both a risky activity and a key ingredient in the strategy of firms that strive for radical innovations. This paper investigates a dual facet of the exploratory component of R&D activities with regards to innovation failures: while exploration increases firms' exposure to failure, it also provides learning opportunities which curve it down. This paper contributes to the innovation management and organizational learning literatures by showing that firms' obtain valuable learning from exploration through two complementary mechanisms. The first one based on learning opportunities derived from accumulated experience in exploration, which is associated with the formation of new routines and standard procedures. The second one is based on learning opportunities derived from current exploration efforts, which is associated with improved interpretation of ill-defined problem solving activities. We draw on a longitudinal dataset comprising information for over 2,200 Spanish manufacturing companies and show that, when past experience is associated to an intense current exploration, failures at the conception phase can be reduced. Moreover, we find an inverted U-shaped relation between current exploratory R&D and innovation failures, both at the conception and downstream phases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exploration is both a risky activity and a key ingredient in the strategy of firms that strive for radical innovations. In this paper we analyse how firms' investment in exploration activities affects their exposure to innovation failure. Our baseline results point to an inverted U-shaped relation: while investment in exploratory activities initially increases the rate of failure in innovation, firms that overcome an experience threshold in exploration exhibit decreasing rates of innovation failure. We also show that firm's commitments to product and process development and the availability of human capital act as relevant moderators: they contribute to speed the organisational learning process enhanced by exploration and result in lowering the probability of innovation failure. We investigate these issues drawing on a sample of 2,954 Spanish manufacturing companies for the period 2008-2010. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]