Science Research Management

Science Research Management ›› 2021, Vol. 42 ›› Issue (5): 207-217.

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The effect of scientific project leader′s network position on project′s innovation

Pan Wenhui1, Zhao Pengwei1, Ding Xianfeng1,2   

  1. 1. School of Economics and Management, Xidian University, Xi′an 710100，Shaanxi, China; 
    2. Shaanxi Normal University, Xi′an 710100, Shaanxi, China
  • Received:2018-07-02 Revised:2019-01-17 Online:2021-05-20 Published:2021-05-19

Abstract:    As the main form to obtain support, scientific project plays an important role in promoting innovation which has attracted many scholars′ attention. In order to promote innovation plans comprehensively, the funding departments and scholars seek reasons restricting project innovations by analyzing several aspects. 
    In the process of managing research projects, scientific project leaders and other members who have indirect and direct connections with them form a collaboration network. In this network, scientific project leader′s high prestige attracts resources to facilitate the exchange of knowledge exchange and to set research goals. However, scientific project leaders may have different understanding about network members, and the connections among network members are also different. Scientific project leaders′ network position are thus constantly changing. Therefore, it is of great significance to analyze the effect of scientific project leaders′ network position on project innovation.
    Existing literature has analyzed the effect of network position on innovation from both direct and indirect perspectives, which mainly focus on individual network position. In order to refine the results, network position is measured by centrality and structural holes. For example, in studies focusing on network structure′s direct effect, scholars analyzed centrality through experimental methods and believed that individuals with high centrality are more likely to receive information and ideas from other members, including political resources and emotional resources. The effect of structural holes on innovation is mainly reflected in the fact that structural holes provide opportunities and capabilities for knowledge creation among members which are not directly connected. Similarly, Chinese scholars evaluated knowledge creation and team innovation by focusing on the structural holes of this team. The result indicated that structural holes can promote the enterprises′ innovation. With the increasing complexity of network structure, network structure affects innovation indirectly through third factors. For example, foreign scholars have empirically demonstrated that network position has significant influence on personality disorder and therefore indirectly affects innovation. Analyzed the factors related to innovation, Chinese scholars believed that network position affects geographical proximity, knowledge acquisition and knowledge search, which can also promote innovation.
    Previous studies have indeed confirmed the effect of network structure on innovation. However, seldom research has been done considering this issue from other views. As we all know, scientific project leader has a solid scientific research foundation and a large number of resources, including interpersonal resources and financial resources, which affect the progress of team members′ research output and thus promote innovation. Based on this background, the first aim of this paper is to test the effect of the scientific project leader′s network position on the project′s innovation. 
   Furthermore, recent thinking has focused on different levels of innovations and indicated that different levels of innovations have different cognitive structures. It means that in different innovation networks, factors affecting innovation are not always similar. Hence, the second aim of this paper is to explore whether the effects of the scientific project leader′s network position on the project′s innovation in different innovation networks are different.
   On this basis, this paper collects data from Natural Science Foundation of China under the department of management science in 2012 to 2015, and constructs collaboration networks which include members from several projects. The project′s innovation is measured by the number of English papers, the number of Chinese paper, and the number of monographs. We set threshold of 20% innovation to divide collaboration networks into different levels, namely, high innovation networks, medium innovation networks and low innovation networks. To test the robustness of the results, we collect data in 2016 for the first research aim, and reset the threshold of 1/3 innovation for the second aim.
    Using the method of negative binomial regression, the results indicate that the scientific project leader′s in-degree centrality in the collaboration networks positively affects the project′s innovation. While there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between the scientific project leader′s structural holes and the project′s innovation. In addition, we find that network position has a larger effect on the research project′s innovation in collaboration networks with medium- and low-level innovation when compared with it in collaboration networks with high-level innovation. The results have past the two robustness tests, which prove the stability of our research. 
    The conclusion not only perfects the literature about the effect of networks structure on innovation, verifies the correction of the project management system proposed in our country, it also offers guidance for scientific project leader to design management plans. On the one hand, when the innovation ability in a team is high, the scientific project leader should encourage members to absorb available information from the external environment to enhance collaborations, e.g., international collaboration. The scientific project leader also should provide collaboration opportunities for unconnected members. On the other hand, when the innovation ability in a team is medium or low, the scientific project leader should manage the directly internal relationships. Furthermore, he should play an important role in communication among members.
    Future work will be focus on considering more data from other research fields to extend the applicable scopes of the conclusions. In terms of the measurement of innovation, we will add some indicators, e.g., the introduction of talents, to measure the project′s innovation. Furthermore, different weights of outputs can be added to optimize the evaluate indicators for the project′s innovation. For example, we want to distinguish the importance of SCI, SSCI, and general papers.

Key words: scientific project leader, network position, project innovation, Natural Science Foundation of China