Who is Generating New Innovations? : An Analysis of Blockchain Engineers

Abstract

Who is generating new innovations? Assuming that individual knowledge is deeper at the professional level, knowledge management theory has, to date, focused on how to diversify at the corporate or team level. However, with the advent of technology that can be applied to various industries, it is now thought that knowledge redundancy or knowledge overlap is needed even at the individual level. Thus, in this study, I conducted an empirical analysis of the impact of individual absorptive capacity and knowledge redundancy on the quality of innovation performance using patent data in the field of blockchain technology. Based on the analysis, I found that individual absorptive capacity enhances the quality of innovation performance and that knowledge redundancy and quality of innovation performance have an “inverted-U” relationship. This “inverted-U” shape tells us that the quality of innovation performance declines when personal knowledge becomes too specialized in the development of new advanced technology. Implications and possible directions for future research are discussed.