Abstract: The phenomenon of “huddling together for warmth” has emerged in an ever-changing technological environment. Previous studies have found that innovation interaction at the micro level plays an extremely important role in network invulnerability, but two contradictory conclusions have been drawn. Previous studies have shown that the interaction of technology groups from the perspective of partnership is closely related to network homogeneity. Moreover, it is argued that structural homogeneity directly affects the invulnerability of innovation networks, but this arguement has not been widely accepted. In view of this, this study aims to solve the following two issues: first, the relationship between the coupling of partnerships among technology groups and the invulnerability of innovation networks; and second, the role of structural homogeneity in the above. We take the new energy industry as the research object, and construct 138 patent citation networks during the time-window from 2005 to 2018. The empirical results show that there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between the coupling strength of technology groups and the invulnerability of innovation network. Moreover, structural homogeneity plays a partial mediating role in the above relationship. This study helps to better understand the internal mechanism of the smooth operation of innovation networks. Moreover, from the perspective of network invulnerability, it provides practical guidance for regulating coupling activities among technology groups and network assortativity.

Key words: technology groups, partnership coupling, structural homogeneity, network invulnerability