Organizational Learning and Knowledge Spillover in Innovation Networks: Agent-Based Approach (Extending SKIN Framework)

In knowledge-based economy, knowledge has a public good and non-rivalry nature. Firms build their own knowledge stock not only by means of internal R&D and collaboration with partners, but also by means of previously spilled over knowledge of other firms and public research laboratories (such as universities). Firms based on their absorptive capacity, and level of intra-industry and extra-industry knowledge spillover could learn to produce innovative products. SKIN (Simulating Knowledge Dynamics in Innovation Networks) is an agentbase framework to study knowledge dynamics between innovative firms. The basic SKIN framework does not support absorptive capacity and knowledge spillover concepts, so this paper extends basic SKIN framework and adds absorptive capacity and knowledge spillover to it, and experiments -by simulation- the effect of these concepts on organizational learning. The results show that absorptive capacity has a moderating effect on organizational learning. This effect has been measured by the firms'' population, average innovation length, Herfindahl Index and network density.