TY  - JOUR
A1  - Zacharias, Nicolas
A1  - Daldere, Dace
A1  - Hinz, Oliver
T1  - Which collaborations allow firms to become gatekeepers? A longitudinal analysis of a large-scale collaboration network
T2  - European Management Journal
N2  - Having a gatekeeper position in a collaborative network offers firms great potential to gain competitive advantages. However, it is not well understood what kind of collaborations are associated with such a position. Conceptually grounded in social network theory, this study draws on the resource-based view and the relational factors view to investigate which types of collaboration characterize firms that are in a gatekeeper position, which ultimately could improve firm performance in subsequent periods. The empirical analysis utilizes a unique longitudinal data set to examine dynamic network formation. We used a data crawling approach to reconstruct collaboration networks among the 500 largest companies in Germany over nine years and matched these networks with performance data. The results indicate that firms in gatekeeper positions often engage in medium-intensity collaborations and less likely weak-intensity collaborations. Strong-intensity collaborations are not related to the likelihood of being a gatekeeper. Our study further reveals that a firm's knowledge base is an important moderator and that this knowledge base can increase the benefits of having a gatekeeper position in terms of firm performance.
KW  - Gatekeeper position
KW  - Collaboration types
KW  - Collaboration network
KW  - Knowledge
KW  - Longitudinal data
Y1  - 2021
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/78706
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-787060
SN  - 0263-2373
VL  - 41.2023
IS  - 2
SP  - 263
EP  - 273
PB  - Elsevier
CY  - Amsterdam
ER  -