China’s non-ferrous metal recycling technology convergence and driving factors: A quadratic assignment procedure analysis based on patent collaboration-based network structural hole

Technological convergence is an important organizational innovation capability, essential for improving the core competitiveness of green and sustainable industries. However, studies have mainly focused on measuring technological convergence and have ignored the factors that affect the capabilities of such convergence capabilities. Thus, this study attempts to bridge this gap by providing an in-depth analysis of the impact of structural holes in inter-organizational technical cooperation networks. This technological convergence is studied from the perspective of a patent. It also considers the moderating effects of the degree of patent cooperation and the cooperation distance. It employs the social network theory to construct inter-organizational patent cooperation, and technological convergence networks, to facilitate the analysis of the effect of structural holes on such a convergence. It empirically examines 52 non-ferrous metal recycling organizations, with close patent cooperation. Accordingly, the structural hole constraint index by the inter-organizational patent cooperation network, shows a positive U-shaped curve relationship with technology convergence. Moreover, the degree of inter-organizational patent cooperation strengthens the positive U-shaped relationship, and the distance of cooperation weakens the influence of the structural hole constraint index on technology convergence. Therefore, managers and policymakers should encourage more industry-academia-research or patent alliances and designate policies to promote such cooperation.