IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jbrese/v197y2025ics0148296325002759.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Structural holes and firm innovation in industrial clusters: A dual embeddedness perspective

Author

Listed:
  • You, Shuyang
  • Wang, Liwen
  • Zhou, Kevin Zheng
  • Jia, Liangding

Abstract

While geography-related factors are critical to determining the functioning of networks, prior studies have overlooked how they may shape the impact of structural holes on firm innovation. Building on structural hole theory and the industrial cluster literature, we propose that structural holes negatively influence firm innovation in industrial clusters. Such negative impact can be attributed to broker firms’ social and political embeddedness in these clusters, and is thus moderated by social factors (i.e., local information density and intra-cluster partner ratio) and political factors (i.e., local government coordination and political connection importance). Our predictions receive support from a matched sample of on-site survey and secondary data from 221 firms in industrial clusters in China. This study contributes to structural hole theory by incorporating geographic factors and offers important implications for policymakers aiming to promote firm innovation.

Suggested Citation

  • You, Shuyang & Wang, Liwen & Zhou, Kevin Zheng & Jia, Liangding, 2025. "Structural holes and firm innovation in industrial clusters: A dual embeddedness perspective," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 197(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:197:y:2025:i:c:s0148296325002759
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2025.115452
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296325002759
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jbusres.2025.115452?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:197:y:2025:i:c:s0148296325002759. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jbusres .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.