مقاله سال ۲۰۱۶

Emerging market countries such as South Korea, Taiwan, China, and India have not yet reached developed country status, but have outpaced their developing counterparts (Bozyk, ˙ ۲۰۰۶). Some of these countries, such as South Korea, have initiated national programs to advance their technological capabilities to the level of those of developed counties (Lee et al., 2009; Mathews, 2006). Taiwan has launched national technology programs such as the National Telecommunication Program (NTP) to encourage frontier research and development (R&D) of technologies and achieve a globally competitive advantage. However, individual NTP academic projects have performed inconsistently and, therefore, raised practical concerns regarding the quality of project management and the efficiency of resource allocation, particularly under limited R&D resources (Hung and Shiu, 2014). Hung et al. (2010) revealed that several top-tier NTP research groups are centered around particular research institutions or universities, indicating that being part of a high-density research network can produce exceptional R&D performance. Links to local development centers absorb a large amount of resources; complementary technologies seem to be critical to scientific researchers (Tiwana, 2008).

According to Stewart and Barrick (2000), interpersonal skills and relationships mediate the contributions within a research team and affect performance. Coleman (1988) argued that a strongly connected relationship network resembles social capital. Specific capital of this type supports combinatorial innovation, transformative capacity, and knowledge integration in a cooperative team (Obstfeld, 2005; Tiwana, 2008), and channels resources toward the project team leader’s network connections (Kao and Shen, 2009). The depth of a social network reflects the importance of a person acting as the information or knowledge source within his or her associated organization or society (Björk and Magnusson, 2009; Tsai, 2001). Centrality involves a high degree of inflow and outflow relationships in a network, and positively relates to the absorptive capacity of a team, attracting more R&D expenditure (Björk and Magnusson, 2009; Chiu, 2009; Tsai, 2001). The higher the centrality of a team within its organization or society, the more the team shares technologies through the networking process and contributes to innovation (Björk and Magnusson, 2009).

Beyond its importance in social networks, the gatekeeper of an R&D team serves as an important communication channel and discriminates R&D performance (Hung et al., 2013). Allen (1977) asserted that the role of a gatekeeper is to actively acquire external information sources to meet information requirements and maintain a high level of communication, both within and outside of his or her organization. Gatekeepers are usually accomplished performers who produce more papers for presentation and publication and receive more recognition from their peers (Shumsky and Pinker, 2003). Furukawa and Goto (2006) asserted that corporate scientists with high numbers of publications serve as central conduits for the in-flow of knowledge from outside of their companies, thereby stimulating innovation. Consequently, social network and gatekeeper functionality accumulates technology ties, which involve dense technological connections within a network, leading to advantages in knowledge transfer and sharing (Lin et al., 2010). This process enhances technological development capability (Coleman, 1988). The cohesion theory indicates that benefits result from dense technology networks because of deep accumulative experience and intensive interactions (Coleman, 1988). Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine the multifaceted influence processes of social networks and gatekeeper functionality mediated by technology ties to R&D project performance and thereby explain the performance discrepancy of R&D projects.