RELYING ON PARTNERS OR ITSELF? HOW A CENTRALLY POSITIONED FIRM CAN PURSUE TECHNOLOGICAL DIVERSITY: THE USE OF NETWORK DENSITY OR R&D RESOURCES

This study examines the benefits of network centrality (NC) in creating technological diversity. Given the role of NC in access to external technological knowledge (TK), this study uses network density and R&D resources as moderators to explore the consequences of using TK for technological diversity. The results show that NC alone does not have a positive effect on technological diversity. However, network density and R&D resources, respectively, moderate the positive relationship between NC and technological diversity. Additionally, when influenced by these two moderators simultaneously, the creation of technological diversity heavily depends on the extent to which centrally positioned firms invest in R&D resources. In this study, R&D resources play a stronger complementary role in NC than network density does.