A set of U.S.-based companies is investigated regarding the effectiveness of intellectual property protection mechanisms (IPPMs) in the formation of research partnerships. Patents are the most frequently used IPPM to protect both background and foreground knowledge in partnerships. Other IPPMs...

This paper discusses the impact of a firm's technology portfolio on its market value. Two concepts are used to characterize a firm's portfolio: the number of technological fields and the degree of relatedness within the portfolio characterized by the amount of joint occurrences of patents in...

An innovative firm chooses strategically whether to patent its process innovation or rely on secrecy. By doing so, the firm manages its rival's beliefs about the size of the innovation, and affects the incentives in the product market. Different measures of competitive pressure in the product...

Systemic innovation theory emphasizes that innovations are the result of an interdependent exchange process between different organizations. This is reflected in the current paradigm in European innovation policy, which aims at the support of collaborative R&D and innovation projects bringing...

Successful innovative activity is a major contribution to the intangible capital of firms. Although its importance is generally acknowledged, the contribution to companies? profits is a priori unclear. We present the results of an empirical study on the effects of the patent stock on...

The present paper first discusses theoretically the different incentives of manager- versus owner-controlled firms for investment into innovative activity. In addition, the role of debt financing is analyzed. Subsequently the results from an empirical study on the determinants of innovative...

The theoretical discussion concerning the question whether the incumbent or the (potential) entrant invests more into R&D has attracted considerable interest. This paper reports the results of an empirical study on this question using data of about 3500 German firms over the years 1992 to 1995....

Many studies investigate the relationship between R&D expenditures as an input and patents as an intermediate product or output of a knowledge production function. We suggest that the productivity of research in patent production functions has been underestimated in the literature, as scholars...

The knowledge produced by academic scientists has been identified as a potential key driver of technological progress. Recent policies in Europe aim at increasing commercially orientated activities in academe. Based on a sample of German scientists across all fields of science we investigate the...

International knowledge spillovers, especially through multinational companies (MNCs), have recently been a major topic of the academic and management discussion. However, most studies treat MNC subsidiaries as relatively passive actors without clear knowledge protection strategies. The goal of...