Knowledge that Transforms

This study examines the longitudinal trend of systemness in networked research relations in South Korea using a triple helix (TH) indicator of university-industry-government (UIG) relations. The data were harvested from the Science Citation Index (SCI) and its counterparts in the social sciences (SSCI) and the arts and humanities (A&HCI). The total number of Korean SCI publications has grown rapidly since 1965. However, the TH indicator shows that the network dynamics have varied considerably according to the research policies of the national government. The collaboration patterns, as measured by co-authorship relations in the SCI noticeably increased, with some variation, from the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s. However, inter-institutional collaboration in the first decade of the 21st century was negatively influenced by the new national science and technology (S&T) research policies that evaluated domestic scientists and research groups based on their international publication numbers rather than on the level of cooperation among academic, private, and public domains. The results reveal that Korea has failed to boost its national research capacity by neglecting the network effects in science, technology, and industry.

This paper draws on social network theory to develop a model of regional cluster performance. We suggest that high performing regional clusters are underpinned by (1) network strength and (2) network openness, but that the effects of these on the performance of a cluster as a whole are moderated by environmental uncertainty. Specifically, the positive effects of network openness on cluster performance tend to increase as environmental uncertainty increases, while the positive effects of network strength on cluster performance tend to decrease as environmental uncertainty increases. Our findings have theoretical and practical implications for social network research in general, and cluster research in particular.