The Adoption Speed of Scientific Knowledge: The Moderating Role of Path Dependency on Scientific Knowledge

This study analyzes the effect of different speeds of a firm’s adopting new scientific knowledge on the firm’s performance. The previous research indicates whether being a pioneer to adopt leading-edge scientific knowledge among competitors is a double-edged sword. Using a new measure of knowledge speed - “pioneering”, based on the order-of-citing new scientific articles from patent citations, the study can directly test firms’ new knowledge sourcing behaviors. Results show that pioneering and knowledge stock has a positive interaction effect on firm performance, whereas either knowledge diversity or knowledge maturity interacting with pioneering has a negative effect on firm performance. Knowledge stock is necessary for the pioneering knowledge applied to the current R & D process. The benefit of pioneering is enlarged when a firm has specialized knowledge that enables the firm to dominate a technology domain. Since the pioneering scientific knowledge is likely to be a new generation knowledge, a firm’s profit from this knowledge depends on familiarity with leveraging emerging knowledge.