Ties that Bind: A Network Approach to Assessing Knowledge Transfers from the ICT Industry

We create an inter-sectoral citation network for 1.5 million patents granted between 1976 and 2010 across all industries in the U.S. In this network, we find a significant increase over time in the innovation centrality of the ICT industry as well as in the “closeness” of non-ICT industries to the ICT industry. Such “closeness” of a non-ICT industry to the ICT industry in the innovation network space yields a significant increase in the proportion of ICT technologies, business model patents, and complementary innovations of the non-ICT industry. In turn, closeness results in superior R&D performance of the citing industry. A unit standard deviation increase in the closeness of an industry to the ICT industry yields a 10.2% increase in innovative efficiency, 48.39% increase in recombinant reuse, and 9.09% increase in recombinant creation capabilities. These results point to a paradigm shift in knowledge production, and also have important implications for the nature of competition in non-ICT industries.