Unlocking key inventor creativity in technical pre-research: the impact of dual inventor networks of structural holes and cohesion

Technical pre-research is critical for firms seeking to address technological discontinuities and elevate innovation quality, relying on networks to facilitate knowledge integration. We examine whether the dual network of ‘structural holes + cohesion’ outperforms sparse or dense networks in boosting key inventors’ creativity at this stage. Using patent data from 10 leading ICT firms in 5G pre-research, we identify 282 key inventors and apply regression analysis to evaluate the impact of dual-networks on creativity. Results show that dual networks significantly enhance key inventors’ creativity compared to sparse or dense networks, with key inventor type (fast – vs. slow-growing) and network centrality positively moderating this effect, highlighting an ‘individual-structure’ fit. The study introduces the structural holes-cohesion duality into the pre-research context, demonstrating how it resolves the knowledge breadth–depth paradox by combining heterogeneous knowledge flows with trust-embedded rapid iteration, thereby extending the temporal frontier and boundary conditions of innovation and network structure-creativity research. It also proposes a ‘key inventor-dual network’ matching strategy and offers an actionable framework for firms to build key inventor networks.