The dark side of knowledge geography: their effect on local innovation in the shadows

The positive attributes of knowledge geography are well recognized, yet its dark side has received little attention. Therefore, we have developed an analytical framework to reveal the dark side of knowledge geography by exploring three aspects of knowledge geography: “linear” structure, “reticular” structure, and “planar” structure. The dark sides of these three structures manifest as knowledge relatedness, knowledge complexity, and knowledge inequality. Subsequently, we employed a heterogeneous panel dataset of Chinese prefecture-level cities to examine the effects of the dark side of knowledge geography on local innovation. We found that knowledge relatedness and complexity negatively affect local innovation performance, whereas knowledge inequality exhibits a non-linear effect on local innovation performance, with its positive impact having an optimal range. We also found that embedding in regional innovation networks, as a manifestation of open innovation behaviour, can effectively alleviate the negative effects of knowledge relatedness and complexity on local innovation performance. Additionally, the Spatial Durbin Model estimation confirms that innovation performance exhibits significant positive spatial spillover effects, meaning a city’s innovation benefits from that of its neighbours. The findings of this study endorse a more contextualized way to understand knowledge geography, as it is not universally beneficial, as presumed in the existing literature, at least within the context of our study.