The knowledge-base evolution in biotechnology: A social network analysis

Question

1. What are the contributions mentioned in the paper "The knowledge base evolution in biotechnology: a social network analysis" ?

2. What are the future works in "The knowledge base evolution in biotechnology: a social network analysis" ?

3. What is the difficult component of diversity to measure?

4. What is the use of information entropy to measure variety?

Accepted Answer

This paper applies the methodological tools typical of social network analysis ( SNA ) within an evolutionary framework, to investigate the knowledge base dynamics of the biotechnology sector.. The authors used measures referring to the network, like density, and to its nodes, like degree, closeness and betweenness centrality, to provide a synthetic description of the structure of the knowledge base and of its evolution over time.. Empirical results show the existence of interesting and meaningful relationships across the different measures, providing support for the use of SNA to study the evolution of the knowledge bases of industrial sectors and their lifecycles.

Accepted Answer

Namely, if the structure of the system is defined by its elements ( nodes ) and by their interactions ( links ), then the emergence of a set of completely new concepts gives rise to a discontinuity in the evolution of knowledge, and further to the emergence of a new paradigm or a new research program based on completely novel ideas.. Indeed, a discontinuity can be expected to have on the overall time profile of knowledge an effect similar to the emergence of a paradigm.. In fact, the authors can say that the revolutionary phase of a paradigm results from the emergence of a discontinuity ( Kuhn, 1962 ).. Of course, the authors realize that this is very preliminary work and that, although their findings suggest some general conclusions, they will need to be further tested and better articulated.

Accepted Answer

Disparity is the most difficult component of diversity to measure since it refers to the extent of intrinsic difference between two entities.

Accepted Answer

The use of information entropy to measure variety is based on the rise in the information content of systems as the number of their distinguishable components increases: a system with a large number ofdistinguishable components requires more information to be described than a system with a smaller number of distinguishable components.

Accepted Answer

P1: The emergence of a discontinuity in a type of knowledge suitable to become thefuture knowledge base of a sector leads to the sequence of the two periods of random search first occurring in the exploration phase, and of organized search later in the exploitation phase.

Accepted Answer

The deviations are probably due to a combination of real events affecting the dynamics of knowledge and of noise due to the quality of the data.

Accepted Answer

The important implication of this distinction is that while a growth in unrelated variety implies a rise in cognitive distance, a growth in related variety is compatible with a more incremental development and even a fall in cognitive distance.

Accepted Answer

The authors can expect the evolution of the network of knowledge to occur in a number of ways, from an initial discontinuity to the recomposition of a new network: (i) new concepts and variables, which will be represented as new nodes, emerge; (ii) some old concepts and variables become extinct; (iii) new connections are established between new or old concepts and variables, giving rise to corresponding new links; (iv) the relative weight of old and new nodes and links changes in the course of time.

Accepted Answer

The authors can find out whether knowledge production is determinant of firm performance by measuring a number of properties of their KB and by using these measures as independent variables in econometric studies in which some measure of firm performance is the dependent variable.

Accepted Answer

Using some measures of knowledge properties such as variety, coherence and cognitive distance, the authors showed that these properties can provide us with a more accurate representation of the dynamics of knowledge, also more realistic than the simple use of concepts such as paradigm, exploitation and exploration, random or organised search.

Accepted Answer

Though the use of IPC classes to define sectors’ boundaries may present some drawbacks, as they are function-oriented (Corrocher et al., 2007), the merging of two classifications allows their study to be much more inclusive than many other studies, and reduce the risk of neglecting important classes.

Accepted Answer

The authors interpreted their results as showing that the knowledge base of biotechnology using firms, mostly pharmaceutical and agrochemical, was affected in the 1970s by a discontinuity constituted by the discovery of recombinant DNA and monoclonal antibodies, which suddenly shortened the time horizon during which industrial applications could be expected.

Accepted Answer

At the level of the firm the knowledge base (KB) can be defined as the collective knowledge that firms can use to achieve their productive objectives.

The knowledge-base evolution in biotechnology: A social network analysis

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Most frequently asked questions

1. What are the contributions mentioned in the paper "The knowledge base evolution in biotechnology: a social network analysis" ?

2. What are the future works in "The knowledge base evolution in biotechnology: a social network analysis" ?

3. What is the difficult component of diversity to measure?

4. What is the use of information entropy to measure variety?

5. What is the emergence of a discontinuity in a type of knowledge suitable to become?

6. What is the reason for the deviations?

7. What is the implication of the distinction between related and unrelated variety?

8. How can the authors expect the evolution of the network of knowledge to occur?

9. How can the authors find out whether knowledge production is determinant of firm performance?

10. What are some of the properties of knowledge that can be used to represent the dynamics of knowledge?

11. What are the drawbacks of the use of IPC classes to define sectors’ boundaries?

12. What was the effect of the discontinuity in biotechnology?

13. What is the definition of knowledge base?

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Citations

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Knowledge Coherence, Variety and economic Growth: Manufacturing Evidence from Italian Regions

Scientific knowledge dynamics and relatedness in biotech cities

High Growth Firms and Technological Knowledge: Do gazelles follow exploration or exploitation strategies?

The path- and place-dependent nature of scientific knowledge production in biotech 1986-2008

References

A mathematical theory of communication

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

Absorptive capacity: a new perspective on learning and innovation

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

Exploration and Exploitation in Organizational Learning

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