Beyond Project Boundaries: Network Structures, Search Scope, and Performance

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Scientific breakthroughs often emerge not only from formal R&D project structures, but also from emergent collaborations beyond those boundaries. This study theorizes that network stability and inconsistency jointly influence scientific performance via two distinct search scopes at the paper and project levels. While moderate network stability facilitates both coordination and integration, this curvilinear effect is amplified only at high levels of network inconsistency, allowing teams to leverage stable ties without becoming rigid. To explain the tradeoff of stable collaborations, we identify two opposing mechanisms: stability expands paper search scope yet narrows project search scope by limiting the team to similar research trajectories. We test hypotheses using a dual-network dataset of 5566 papers derived from 12 562 government-funded biotechnology projects in South Korea (2012–2020), based on project and research collaboration networks. Our findings advance research on boundary-spanning, search behavior, and project-based organizing by revealing how structural configurations in temporary collaborations influence both the direction and diversity of scientific performance.