Technological overlap, also known as knowledge base overlap, refers to the overlap degree of the existing knowledge of two invention subjects at a certain time point and focuses on discussing the knowledge connection between innovation subjects from the perspective of commonness. A patent is a typical product of knowledge codification, and its citation information provides the flow footprint of related codified knowledge (Jaffe et al.,1993;Alcacer & Gittelman,2006). Due to the improved availability of patent data by electronization, the technological overlap index has been constructed in many studies based on the same backward citation patent information, as found in the patent applications of two invention subjects (such as two enterprises). Thus, as the existing knowledge connection (Sears & Hoetker,2014; Bena & Li,2014) between invention subjects can be measured, technological overlaps can be used to measure the codified knowledge index connection between invention subjects.
According to relevant studies, the higher the overlap degree of existing codified knowledge among innovation subjects, the more familiar they are with relevant technologies and knowledge, which helps to alleviate the frictions and troubles caused by information asymmetry in the establishment of innovation teams (such as searching and matching both parties in mergers and acquisitions) and the post-establishment innovation activities (such as understanding and using external technologies or knowledge). Therefore, this concept is often discussed in studies on enterprises' behavior of acquiring external knowledge resources (such as technology mergers, acquisitions, and R&D alliances) (Ahuja & Katila,2001; Sears & Hoetker,2014; Kapoor & Lim,2007; Makri et al., 2010). In addition, studies on corporate banking held that the overlap of existing codified knowledge also contributes to the formation of economies of scale of innovation resources after mergers and acquisitions (Bena & Li,2014).
Meanwhile, some existing studies also focused on the impact of technological overlap on the internalization of external knowledge activities by innovation subjects. Chesbrough (2003) noted that the R&D innovation activities of R&D subjects, such as enterprises presenting a trend of openness innovation, but the internalization of external ideas or knowledge is not an automatic or free process. According to the Cassiman & Colombo (2006), the essential purpose of technology-driven mergers and acquisitions is to coordinate internal and external technical resources to enhance innovation output. Both Ahuja & Katila (2001) and Bena & Li(2014) noted that the correlation between external knowledge acquired by R&D subjects through mergers and acquisitions and their existing codified knowledge (i.e., technological overlap) can affect the quantity and quality of innovation output after acquiring external knowledge resources.
Generally speaking, as a measure of the bilateral codified knowledge connection, the mechanism of technological overlap affecting innovation activities mainly includes the following aspects. First, a technological overlap helps to alleviate the frictions caused by information asymmetry in the process of collaboration between internal knowledge and external knowledge. According to Graebner & Eisenhardt (2010), technological overlap helps to improve the absorptive capacity of enterprises (Cohen & Levinthal,1990) and reduces the barriers for enterprises to understand and use external knowledge resources. According to Kavusan et al. (2016), the higher the technological overlap, the more similar the innovation activity paradigms of all parties in the innovation alliance, which is conducive to the understanding and use of external knowledge by all parties, and further conducive to the smooth development of R&D cooperation. According to Bena & Li (2014), technological overlap helps buyers identify and discover the actual value of knowledge and technical resources. In this way, the search and match efficiency in the mergers and acquisitions market can be improved, and the related transactions can be promoted. Second, technological overlap helps to form economies of scale and the scope of innovation resources. According to Henderson & Cockburn (1996), since a technological overlap is the intersection of the existing knowledge of both parties, mergers and acquisitions help to preserve innovation resources, thus, forming economies of scale; or this knowledge can be used more widely to form economies of scale. Third, technological overlap helps to specialize innovation activities. In order to make more effective use of the surplus innovation resources, as derived from technological overlap, both parties of the innovation cooperation will reconfigure the combined innovation resources, and then, promote R&D activities in the technical field which they have advantages, thus, enhancing their specialization level (Cassiman & Colombo,2006).
However, technological overlaps may also push the resistance and costs of internalizing the external knowledge of innovation subjects. Sears & Hoetker (2014) noted that a technological overlap may cause knowledge redundancy among R&D subjects, which will increase the cost and difficulty of effectively identifying each party’s high-value knowledge. Therefore, the excessive expansion of technological overlap may have a negative impact on the effect of the internalization of external knowledge by innovation subjects. According to Kavusan et al. (2016), the internalization effect of technological overlap on external knowledge presents an inverted U-shaped relationship, which is in conformity with the viewpoint of Sears & Hoetker (2014). Therefore, compared with the technological overlap constituted by high-value patents, the expansion of technological overlap constituted by general-value patents is not entirely beneficial for enterprises to search and identify external innovation human resources. As highly-cited patents are widely used as background knowledge sources for R&D subjects, they have wider recognition and deeper understanding among R&D groups, and thus, have a more significant impact in alleviating any inconsistencies caused by information asymmetry during R&D cooperation. Therefore, this paper focused on the structural features of technological overlap, constructed corresponding technological overlap indicators based on highly-cited patents and non-highly-cited patents, and compared the impact of the two on the allocation of cross-border inventor resources.
High-quality innovation activities usually require innovative talents with higher skill levels, and such talents are highly irreplaceable. However, enterprises seeking external innovation resources may find it difficult to obtain suitable high-end technical talents locally, which is particularly obvious for emerging economies due to their relatively weak reserve of high-end technical talents. Therefore, in order to carry out high-quality innovation activities, emerging economies must expand their search scope of external inventor resources (Katila & Ahuja, 2002; Ahuja & Katila, 2004) and rely more on introducing them from global innovation hotspots. Meanwhile, more complex and cutting-edge knowledge must be invested in high-quality innovation activities(Akcigit et al., 2016), which leads to more serious information asymmetry in innovation teams carrying out high-quality innovation activities (Wuchty, et al., 2007). Therefore, in order to build effective cross-border innovation teams, the bilateral codified knowledge connection can play a greater role in alleviating the impact of information asymmetry.
This paper puts forward the following hypothesis:
H1: The technological overlap of highly-cited patent technologies can promote the scale of the introduction of overseas inventors to the high-quality R&D activities of emerging economies.
In addition to the codified knowledge, tacit knowledge also plays an important role in innovation activities. During the allocation of cross-border inventor resources with technological overlap, the tacit knowledge connection (Latilla, 2018) can enrich the diversity of the cognitive dimensions among innovation team members (Nonaka & Krogh,2009), thereby directly enhancing the team’s creativity potential (Hoever et al., 2012; Kurtzberg, 2005). Moreover, in addition to transmitting the uncodified frontier knowledge in the technical dimension, the tacit knowledge connection can affect the unique innovation behavior of R&D subjects through the cognitive dimension (Nonaka & Krogh,2009). However, due to its abstractness and inexpressiveness, tacit knowledge is difficult to be codified, or it cannot be codified or disseminated in a timely manner due to its excessive advance. Therefore, the communication and sharing of tacit knowledge usually require face-to-face communication between people, meaning its relying more on those who participate in innovative activities (Dhanaraj,2004), such as direct peer-to-peer interaction in private social networks (Lecuona,2014).
During the innovation activities carried out using the codified knowledge contained in knowledge documents, innovation personnel must decode the knowledge documents. On one hand, the redundant knowledge(Sears & Hoetker,2014), which is irrelevant to the theme of the current innovation activities in the codified knowledge search, is screened to eliminate its interference. On the other hand, when codifying the knowledge, distorted information can be restored (Roach & Cohen, 2013; Arora et al., 2018), and such factors will restrict the utilization efficiency of codified knowledge by the innovation team. However, during this process, the tacit knowledge possessed by innovation participants will play a reasonable role in interpreting relevant codified knowledge, thus, alleviating this restriction. Therefore, under an environment where emerging countries attract overseas innovative talents, tacit knowledge may enhance the attraction of codified knowledge to overseas inventors. Meanwhile, when the tacit knowledge attached to overseas inventors has a strong impact on the interpretation of codified knowledge, the role of codified knowledge in alleviating information asymmetry may be replaced, thus, the attraction of codified knowledge to overseas inventors may be weakened.
This paper puts forward the following hypothesis:
H2: In the process of attracting overseas innovative talents by emerging economies, the tacit knowledge connection plays a moderating role in the allocation effect of overseas patent inventors by the codified knowledge index.