Impact of knowledge search practices on the originality of inventions: a study in the oil & gas industry

Quentin Plantec (), Pascal Le Masson () and Benoit Weil ()
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Quentin Plantec: CGS i3 - Centre de Gestion Scientifique i3 - Mines Paris - PSL (École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris) - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - I3 - Institut interdisciplinaire de l’innovation - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, INPI - Institut National de la Propriété Industrielle
Pascal Le Masson: CGS i3 - Centre de Gestion Scientifique i3 - Mines Paris - PSL (École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris) - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - I3 - Institut interdisciplinaire de l’innovation - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Benoit Weil: CGS i3 - Centre de Gestion Scientifique i3 - Mines Paris - PSL (École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris) - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - I3 - Institut interdisciplinaire de l’innovation - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

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Abstract: The paper suggests a new taxonomy of knowledge search modes to describe the creative process of new invention design, in particular how firms combine knowledge components from their own knowledge base-taking into account both the components and the structures of knowledge bases-with those from newly acquired or newly internally developed. Using network theory techniques, we defined four knowledge search modes: (1) refinement, (2) clustering, (3) absorption and (4) recomposition. We conducted an exploratory study on the oil & gas industry, reviewing 50,776 utility patents filed by 16 major firms between 1989 and 2016. The results showed, first, that firms relied to varying extents on different knowledge search modes in their invention design processes. Second, reviewing the technological originality of the designed inventions showed that simply absorbing new knowledge components, without major changes in knowledge base structure, was associated with low technological originality, but constituted one of the main knowledge search modes used by the analyzed firms. In contrast, major changes in knowledge base structure favored technological originality, with or without new knowledge components, but were nevertheless the least used mode. Understanding organizational learning practices associated with the phenomena described here can foster innovation performance in firms.

Keywords: Knowledge search; Patent; Oil & gas; technological originality; knowledge base (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-08-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ino, nep-knm, nep-sbm and nep-tid
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Published in Academy of Management Conference (AoM), Aug 2020, Vancouver, Canada

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-02613665

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