How technological relatedness influences inter-firm collaborative performance: an empirical study on 5 high-tech fields of scientific and technological achievements

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of two dimensions of technological relatedness, namely technological similarity and complementarity, on collaborative performance, plus the mediating role of collaboration network stickiness and the moderating role of partner expertise and geographical distance in interfirm collaboration contexts.Design/methodology/approachThis study takes Chinese Scientific and Technological Achievements (STA) of inter-firm collaboration in five high-tech fields in 2010–2020 as the sample and uses OLS regression to test the hypothesis.FindingsTechnological similarity and complementarity positively affect collaborative performance. Partner expertise negatively moderates the relationship between similarity, complementarity and collaborative performance. Geographical distance positively moderates the relationship between similarity and collaborative performance while negatively moderates that between complementarity and collaborative performance. Collaboration network stickiness partly mediates the relationship between similarity and collaborative performance.Originality/valueThis study expands literature on inter-firm collaboration, especially research on the antecedents of collaborative performance. Moreover, this study not only compensates for lack of empirical analysis in partner selection research, but also utilizes second-hand data to enhance the objectivity of analysis. Additionally, we enrich the research on the moderating role of partner expertise and geographical distance as well as the mediating role of collaboration network stickiness.