caa a22 4500 445349514 CHVBK 20180317142839.0 cr unu---uuuuu 170323e20110201xx s 000 0 eng 10.1007/s11192-010-0290-9 doi (NATIONALLICENCE)springer-10.1007/s11192-010-0290-9 Hsieh Chihmao Amsterdam School of Economics, University of Amsterdam, E2.39, Roetersstraat 11, 1018 WB, Amsterdam, The Netherlands aut Explicitly searching for useful inventions: dynamic relatedness and the costs of connecting versus synthesizing [Elektronische Daten] [Chihmao Hsieh] Inventions combine technological features. When features are barely related, burdensomely broad knowledge is required to identify the situations that they share. When features are overly related, burdensomely broad knowledge is required to identify the situations that distinguish them. Thus, according to my first hypothesis, when features are moderately related, the costs of connecting and costs of synthesizing are cumulatively minimized, and the most useful inventions emerge. I also hypothesize that continued experimentation with a specific set of features is likely to lead to the discovery of decreasingly useful inventions; the earlier-identified connections reflect the more common consumer situations. Covering data from all industries, the empirical analysis provides broad support for the first hypothesis. Regressions to test the second hypothesis are inconclusive when examining industry types individually. Yet, this study represents an exploratory investigation, and future research should test refined hypotheses with more sophisticated data, such as that found in literature-based discovery research. The Author(s), 2010 Connections nationallicence Search nationallicence Inventions nationallicence Patents nationallicence Linkage nationallicence Relatedness nationallicence Scientometrics Springer Netherlands 86/2(2011-02-01), 381-404 0138-9130 86:2<381 2011 86 11192 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-010-0290-9 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-010-0290-9 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 100 1- Hsieh Chihmao Amsterdam School of Economics, University of Amsterdam, E2.39, Roetersstraat 11, 1018 WB, Amsterdam, The Netherlands aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Scientometrics Springer Netherlands 86/2(2011-02-01), 381-404 0138-9130 86:2<381 2011 86 11192 Metadata rights reserved Springer special CC-BY-NC licence nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-springer