The Trap of Boundary Fixation in Inter-organizational Networks

This paper is a quick announcement of the results of an analysis that was conducted to identify how innovation is affected by the fixation of borders in inter-organizational networks that make up regional systems for innovation. The data used in the analysis was taken from a questionnaire survey about finished projects from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry’s “Consortium R&D Projects for Regional Revitalization.” The analysis shows that for a project undertaken by an inter-organizational network, the probability that its results will be successfully implemented has a U-shaped relationship to the rate of fixation among its participants. This finding suggests that greater fixedness is not necessarily always advantageous for innovation. Meanwhile, since path dependence exists among the configuration of the network’s participants, the tendency for boundaries to become fixed can emerge at any time. To bring attention to this point, I have chosen to call the phenomenon identified in the analysis “the trap of boundary fixation.