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1. Introduction
The necessity of inter-organizational relationships is growing increasingly. The considerable complexity of products has made it less likely for firms to have all the resources needed to achieve their goals (Chesbrough, 2006) and it has led companies to seek a collaborative advantage (Lavie, 2006; Ardito et al., 2019a). Because of increasing environmental uncertainty, these inter-organizational relationships have become much more networked (Mokhtarzadeh et al., 2018, 2020). A network is a complex and interconnected set of individuals, groups and organizations and networking is the ability to develop and deploy a network to meet goals (Tidd and Bessant, 2013; Sadeghi et al., 2014).
Inter-organizational collaborations can be categorized from different perspectives, such as the direction and subject of cooperation (Jafari-Sadeghi et al., 2020b; Tjemkes et al., 2017). Meanwhile, firm knowledge deficiencies in the pursuit of their strategic goals and the high risk of knowledge development have led to a sharp increase in the development networks (Hitt et al., 2000; Rezaei et al., 2020; Ardito et al., 2019b). Sufficient inter-organizational knowledge sharing in learning networks requires careful consideration of specific issues. Some of them include partners’ knowledge needs, knowledge sharing purpose, the characteristics of the partner’s knowledge base, features of knowledge sharing mechanism, the status of knowledge sharing enablers and barriers, and the expected learning outcomes. In the meantime, the role of inter-organizational knowledge mechanisms (IOKMs) is so prominent because these mechanisms simultaneously contribute to knowledge transfer, sharing, application and integration (Lindgren and Widen, 2018). According to Chai et al. (2003), IOKMs are a set of methods, procedures and processes involved in knowledge sharing and learning at the inter-organizational level. Research shows that the competitiveness of business networks in delivering innovation and success of knowledge sharing heavily depends on the selection and effective implementation of IOKMs (Jafari-Sadeghi, 2020; Slaughter and Kirsch, 2006; Sukumar et al., 2020; Natalicchio et al., 2017), Therefore, knowledge sharing is enhanced through IOKMs (De Meyer, 1991). Although several studies have focused on the significance of applying IOKMs in learning networks (Mokhtarzadeh and Faghei, 2019), the effect of IOKMs on enhancing networking capability (NC) for learning purpose remains unknown.
Latecomer firms (LCFs) have recently received considerable attention from the academic and practitioner worlds....