The network origins of Schumpeterian innovation

This paper investigates the key driving features of the evolving long-term division of innovative labor in biotechnology and pharmaceuticals from 1981 to 2012. Our main goal is to find if technological trajectories and mechanisms discovered by Orsenigo et al. (Res Policy 30(3): 485–508, 2001) as the main drivers of the structural configuration of the network of collaborative alliances have been at work in the long-term evolution of the industry. We extensively analyze the evolving dynamics of the degree distribution and the higher order properties of the R&D network. As in Orsenigo et al. (Res Policy 30(3): 485–508, 2001), we find that polarization through preferential attachment driven by large pharmaceutical companies as Developers and by the entry of new specialized biotechnology companies acting as Originators of new R&D opportunities dominated the early stages of the biotechnology revolution. Later on the evolution of the collaborative network has been shaped by roles’ transitions between Originators and Developers of innovative ideas. Against this background, we introduce parsimonious model of network formation and evolution is introduced, to account for some essential features of the data generating processes underlying the evolution of the network.