Collaborative development of complex equipment: A network perspective

Abstract

In an open innovation environment, complex equipment is always developed within a collaborative development network. Existing researches on collaborative development are mainly based on methodology of non-weighted static network, and assume that innovative search is independent with knowledge transfer and knowledge creation. This paper, based on scale-free network, establishes a new model to more precisely describe the process and behaviors of collaborative development for complex equipment, which includes innovation search, knowledge transfer and knowledge creation. By using simulation modeling, this paper investigates the dynamic mechanism of knowledge growth in the collaborative network, and probes the impact of innovation search on the performance of the collaborative development network. It is found that different strategies of innovation search have almost the same evolution path in the collaborative development network, and a similar equilibrium will be reached no matter what kind of search strategy is used. There is an inverted U-shape relationship between the tie density and the average knowledge stock (AKS) in the collaborative network, whereas network relation strength is positively correlated with the AKS. It is proved that strategies of innovation search significantly influence the AKS and the level of knowledge innovation in collaborative development environment.