Abstract: There is no consensus about the mechanism of the relationship between network embeddedness and performance and no a systematic and objective summary and evaluation in the current research on innovation theory. Meta-Analysis is used in this paper to analyze 10365 independent samples quoted from 52 empirical studies about relationship between network embeddedness and performance. Research results indicate that network embeddedness has positive effect on performance on the whole effect, and effects coming from different types of network embeddedness are different; number of network embededness dimensions, types of literatures, research levels and sample sources have significant moderation effects on relationship between network embeddedness and performance. The above conclusions refined by means of meta- analysis overcomes the shortcomings of lacking quantitative support and subjectivity of traditional literature review method to some extent, therefore, it should be more comprehensive and universal.

Key words: network embeddedness, relational embeddedness, structural embeddedness, enterprise performance, meta-analysis