Doctoral Dissertation Research: Search strategies and collaborative innovation of young firms: A natural experiment

医生与行业合作的复杂性质给政策制定带来了挑战：以提高医生与公司之间财务关系透明度为中心的法规可能会导致医生与医疗器械公司的创新努力意外分离。本研究探讨了医企合作的法律和政策如何影响医疗器械行业技术创新的速度和方向。先前的工作表明，大约20%的医疗器械专利可以归功于医生，即为新产品开发过程提供关键见解的专家用户。然而，如果医生认可与他们合作的公司的产品，医生与行业的互动也可能产生利益冲突，这可能会对患者护理的质量产生不利影响，并提高医疗保健的成本。通过实证研究政策对医企关系以及随后对医疗创新的影响，本项目旨在对用户创新的经济和社会影响提供更全面而细致的理解。研究提出了帮助年轻企业进行外部知识搜索以提高创新绩效的策略。从更广泛的角度来看，该研究表明，政策的完善可能会扩大经济中一个重要部分的增长。本项目采用准实验设计来研究医企合作模式，以及企业创新成果方向和速度的变化。利用社会网络的视角，该项目进一步探讨了基于企业自身事前协作网络模式的企业如何受到恭敬性的影响。本研究对创新与战略文献做出了理论和实证贡献。它将用户-公司二元焦点扩展到更广泛的网络环境，将用户的搜索与其他类型的搜索渠道放在一起，并检查搜索模式的动态。该项目提供了一种新颖的研究设计，在建立合作关系与企业创新之间的因果关系方面取得了重大进展。综上所述，该项目旨在促进对医药业合作问题及其多方面影响的理解。

The complex nature of physician-industry collaboration poses challenges in policy making: regulations that center on enhancing transparency of financial relationships between physicians and firms may cause unintended separation of physicians from innovation efforts of medical device firms. This research investigates how laws and policies that govern physician-industry collaboration impact the rate and direction of technological innovation in the medical device industry. Prior work has shown that approximately 20% of medical devices patents could be attributed back to physicians, i.e. expert users providing critical insights to the new product development process. However, physician-industry interactions could also create a conflict of interest if physicians endorse products of companies they collaborate with, which may adversely impact the quality of patient care and elevate the cost of health care. By empirically examining the effect of policy on physician-firm relationships and subsequently on medical innovation, this project aims to provide a more comprehensive yet nuanced understanding of the economic and social implications of user innovation. The research suggests strategy to help young firms navigate external search for new knowledge to enhance innovation performance. More broadly, the research suggests policy refinement that could potentially expand the growth of a vital part of the economy. This project uses a quasi-experimental design to investigate physician-firm collaboration patterns, as well as the changes in the direction and rate of firms' innovation outcomes. Drawing on a social network perspective, the project further explores how firms may be affected deferentially based on the ex-ante collaboration network patterns of the firms themselves. This research makes both theoretical and empirical contributions to the innovation and strategy literature. It extends the user-firm dyadic focus to a broader network context, situates search via users alongside other types of search channels, and examine the dynamics of search patterns. The project provides a novel research design to make significant inroads to establish a causal relationship between collaboration ties and firm innovation. Taken together, this project aims to advance the understanding of the issue of physician-industry collaboration and its multifaceted implications.