  Drawing on the theories of knowledge recombination, we aim to unpack the
essential tension between tradition and innovation in scientific research.
Using the American Physical Society data and computational methods, we analyze
the impact of knowledge spanning on both citation counts and disruptive
innovation. The findings show that knowledge spanning has a U-shaped impact on
disruptive innovation. In contrast, there is an inverted U-shaped relationship
between knowledge spanning and citation counts, and the inverted U-shaped
effect is moderated by team size. This study contributes to the theories of
knowledge recombination by suggesting that both intellectual conformism and
knowledge recombination can lead to disruptive innovation. That is, when
evaluating the quality of scientific research with disruptive innovation, the
essential tension seems to disappear.
