Firms may seek non-redundant information through inter-firm relations beyond their geographic and cognitive boundaries (i.e., relations with firms in other regions and active in different fields). Little is known about the conditions under which firms benefit from this high-risk/high-gain strategy. We created a digital layer of 600,000 German firms by using their websites’ textual and relational content. Our results suggest that strong relations (relations with common third partners) between firms from different fields and inter-regional relations are positively associated with a firm’s innovation level. We also found that a specific combination of weak and strong relations confers greater innovation benefits.

中文翻译：

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利用数字层：弱联系和强联系在弥合地理和认知距离方面的力量

企业可以通过超越其地理和认知边界的企业间关系（即与其他地区和活跃于不同领域的企业的关系）来寻求非冗余信息。人们对企业从这种高风险/高收益策略中受益的条件知之甚少。我们利用 600,000 家德国公司网站的文本和相关内容创建了一个数字层。我们的结果表明，来自不同领域的企业之间的牢固关系（与共同第三方合作伙伴的关系）以及区域间关系与企业的创新水平呈正相关。我们还发现，弱关系和强关系的特定组合可以带来更大的创新效益。