Background: With the Open Innovation paradigm come new hopes for innovating companies. The ability to tap a global network of experts can, at least in theory, have a significant impact on an organization’s competitive strength. Before such a ‘network of experts’ can be used to its full potential however, a number of challenges related to knowledge markets seem to need solutions. About 10 years ago however, we could witness the entry of a new breed of company – calling themselves innovation intermediaries. These companies are built to profit from delivering the usefulness of knowledge networks to client (Seeker) companies. Though the use of such networks and markets have so far been uncommon outside of high-tech fields they are now starting to be seen used by companies in more mature environments.Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to examine the collaboration between SCA (a large Swedish corporation) and the innovation intermediary InnoCentive in order to create a better understanding of what kind of benefits can be derived from the use of an innovation intermediary, and how these benefits are best utilized. We also set out to identify relevant limitations of innomediary use and to seek to better understand how using an innomediary can fit a client company’s higher-order activities such as exploration and exploitation.Completion and Results: Our findings include that SCA are using InnoCentive mainly as a tool to solve highly specific problems and/or problems with a low degree of complexity that they encounter in their everyday activities. The challenges related to knowledge markets, we find, are avoided by keeping problem complexity low and problem modularity high for the problems sent out to the network. In addition, InnoCentive’s business model seems to eliminate costly negotiations between Seekers and Solvers. Using this kind of ‘market solution’ however, we argue, will put bounds on the usefulness of the network and makes it mainly suited as a tool for improving an organization’s exploitation capacity.

This dissertation explains the causes of national differences in markets for technology. Different national approaches to intellectual property protection and use, market openness and market scope are the result of the process of creating technology standards in different countries. Technology Standards, in turn, are the product of two causal variables: the historically determined institutions of standardization - particularly the role of the state in the standardization process, and the position of a country in the fragmented global production system. The institutions of standardization determine the relative influence of different actors over standardization and market position. The position within the global economy determines these actors’ perspectives on intellectual property and market scope. Using case studies of standardization and technology market creation in the United States, Europe and China, this dissertation reveals the mechanisms by which these two variables give rise to national differences in technology markets.

This research investigates the strategic governance choices made in commercializing new technologies arising from university research. <br /><br /> Departing from the traditional licensing vs. start-up approach, it is proposed that there are three primary methods of commercializing these technologies: 1) Build ? creating a new business based on the technology, 2) Rent ? ongoing development and marketing of the technology to established firms that use the technology in their businesses and 3) Sell ? disposition of the technology to an established firm. <br /><br /> Using economic theories of the firm, particularly transaction cost economics, it is hypothesized that: <ul> <li>the build option is positively associated with firms deriving revenue primarily from product market activity (H1a) and expending resources on both technology development activities and production activities (H2a); </li> <li>the rent and sell options are positively associated with firms deriving revenue primarily from technology market activity (H1b) and expending resources on technology development activities but not on production activities (H2b). </li> <li>the greater the patent or other legal protection (H3), the risk of substitutes (H5) or the dynamism associated with the technology (H8), the greater the likelihood that the technology will be commercialized using the rent option;</li> <li>the greater the tacitness and complexity (H4) or the greater the volatility associated with the technology, the greater the likelihood that the technology will be commercialized using the build or sell options; and</li> <li>the greater the importance of specialized complementary assets, the greater the likelihood that the technology will be commercialized using the sell option (H6). </li> </ul> Three studies were conducted providing differing perspectives on the research question. Study #1 examines three start-ups based on new technologies arising from research conducted at the University of Waterloo. Study #2 analyzes the business activities of a number of Canadian and U. S. public start-up firms using archival data. Study #3 is a survey of university faculty members who have had new technologies arising from their academic research put into commercial use. <br /><br /> Hypotheses H1a/b, H2a/b and H3 are supported and Hypothesis H7 received more limited support. Evidence for Hypothesis H5 is in the predicted direction but failed to achieve statistical significance. Hypotheses H4, H5, H6 and H8 are not supported.

This research investigates the strategic governance choices made in commercializing new technologies arising from university research. <br /><br /> Departing from the traditional licensing vs. start-up approach, it is proposed that there are three primary methods of commercializing these technologies: 1) Build ? creating a new business based on the technology, 2) Rent ? ongoing development and marketing of the technology to established firms that use the technology in their businesses and 3) Sell ? disposition of the technology to an established firm. <br /><br /> Using economic theories of the firm, particularly transaction cost economics, it is hypothesized that: <ul> <li>the build option is positively associated with firms deriving revenue primarily from product market activity (H1a) and expending resources on both technology development activities and production activities (H2a); </li> <li>the rent and sell options are positively associated with firms deriving revenue primarily from technology market activity (H1b) and expending resources on technology development activities but not on production activities (H2b). </li> <li>the greater the patent or other legal protection (H3), the risk of substitutes (H5) or the dynamism associated with the technology (H8), the greater the likelihood that the technology will be commercialized using the rent option;</li> <li>the greater the tacitness and complexity (H4) or the greater the volatility associated with the technology, the greater the likelihood that the technology will be commercialized using the build or sell options; and</li> <li>the greater the importance of specialized complementary assets, the greater the likelihood that the technology will be commercialized using the sell option (H6). </li> </ul> Three studies were conducted providing differing perspectives on the research question. Study #1 examines three start-ups based on new technologies arising from research conducted at the University of Waterloo. Study #2 analyzes the business activities of a number of Canadian and U. S. public start-up firms using archival data. Study #3 is a survey of university faculty members who have had new technologies arising from their academic research put into commercial use. <br /><br /> Hypotheses H1a/b, H2a/b and H3 are supported and Hypothesis H7 received more limited support. Evidence for Hypothesis H5 is in the predicted direction but failed to achieve statistical significance. Hypotheses H4, H5, H6 and H8 are not supported.

I study the role of licensed technologies in the R&D development process, the knowledge assimilation mechanism and the patent litigation procedure. I document that the use and adoption of licensed technologies is not a linear process and it has important strategic consequences. First, I focus on the joint effect of external and internal technologies and possible firm-level drivers of this relation. I find that, on average, internal R&D and licensing investments are neither complements nor substitutes. However, firms with higher levels of absorptive capacity, economies of scope, and past licensing experience are able to create positive synergies by combining the two types of investments. In addition, I find that the integration and the adoption of external technology may be limited by internal knowledge accumulation. Firms that experience an inward oriented knowledge accumulation process need to balance the trade-off between internal knowledge reliance and external knowledge assimilation. The negative relation between internal and external knowledge is positively mitigated by two organizational factors: absorptive capacity and the level of decentralization. Finally, assuming that companies are able to adopt external technologies, I find that licensed patents are more reliable than internal ones. In other words, external patents increase the probability of winning a patent lawsuit. Under this circumstance, firms are able to reduce patent uncertainty, limit market entry, and protect future revenue streams.

This dissertation attempts to contribute to our understanding of how firms can manage and benefit from its research and development (R&D) communities. In the first essay, we examine how established firms can leverage a broad R&D community to invent successfully during the early stage of a technological change. We find significant inventions by incumbents outside the existing dominant designs and relate their success to their willingness to search novel areas, explore scientific knowledge in the public domain, and form alliances with a balanced portfolio of partners. We find support for the hypotheses using data from the global semiconductor industry between 1989 and 2002. In the second essay, we examine a classical choice within an R&D community: cooperation or competition with other firms along a technology supply chain. We find that the answer depends not just on the transaction costs, strength of intellectual property protection rights, and asset cospecialization in the buyers' industries, but also the supplier's knowledge transfer capability and a typical buyer's productivity in developing licensed inventions. For instance, the effect of asset cospecialization on licensing is moderated by the factors that affect the buyers' productivity in developing external technology. Additionally, factors that reduce the buyers' development productivity can be mitigated by the supplier's knowledge transfer capability. We find empirical supports for these predictions using a cross-industry panel dataset of a sample of 345 U.S. small technology-based firms for the 1996-2007 period. In the third essay, I develop two game theoretical models to address how research competition from academic researchers affects firms' openness in disclosing intermediate R&D outcomes. Both models predict that such competition increases the firm's incentive to publish research findings, even though the firm would not have had such an incentive without the presence of the competition. The models also suggest several conditions under which the effect takes place. I further discuss the implications of ownership fragmentation for research materials within the scientific community and academic researchers' engagement in entrepreneurial activities. As implied by my models, these phenomena might instigate withholding of research findings by firms.

Cette thèse étudie empiriquement les marchés de brevets. Le Chapitre 1 étudie les transferts internationaux de propriété de brevets, par rapport aux régimes de "patent box". Ces régimes fiscaux offrent un taux de taxation réduit sur les revenus liés aux brevets. L'approche empirique du Chapitre 1 met en lumière une utilisation fiscale des marchés de brevets, et analyse ce comportement en tenant compte des caractéristiques et de la flexibilité des politiques fiscales. Le Chapitre 2 s'intéresse aux transferts de brevets essentiels à des normes, qui donnent à leurs propriétaires un large pouvoir de marché et de négociation. Ce chapitre montre l'existence et étudie deux marchés distincts pour les brevets essentiels: le marché pré-déclaration, sur lequel les entreprises échangent de nouvelles technologies, et le marché post-déclaration, sur lequel elles échangent des brevets déjà déclarés comme essentiels. Le Chapitre 3 examine l'effet de la distance géographique entre les parties contractantes sur le timing de l'accord de licence. L'analyse contrôle pour d'autres facteurs affectant le timing du contrat, et montre l'existence d'une caractéristique locale qui nuit aux arguments d'efficacité liés aux marchés de technologie. Le Chapitre 4 développe une méthode systématique pour l'analyse à grande échelle des transferts de propriété de brevets utilisant les registres européens. Cette méthode est appliquée pour effectuer une première analyse économique dans le domaine des technologies médicales. / This thesis empirically studies markets for patents.Chapter 1 investigates the international transfers of patent ownership with respect to patent box regimes, which provide advantageous tax schemes for revenues derived from patents. It provides empirical evidence on the use of markets for patents with respect to taxes, and analyses this behaviour regarding the features and the flexibility of fiscal policies.Chapter 2 studies the transfers of Standard-Essential Patents (SEPs), which give their owners large market and bargaining power. It provides empirical evidence on the existence and characteristics of two distinct markets for SEPs: the pre-declaration market, on which firms trade early technologies, and the post-declaration market, on which firms exchange already declared SEPs.Chapter 3 examines the effect of geographical distance between the contracting parties on the timing of the licensing deal. It controls for confounding factors and provides evidence on the existence of a local characteristic undermining the efficiency arguments related to markets for technology.Chapter 4 develops a systematic method for the large-scale analysis of the transfers of patent rights using European registers. It applies this method to derive novel economic evidence on the field of medical technologies.

This cumulative dissertation is based on three distinct scientific papers which deal with various strategies of external knowledge sourcing. The first two papers investigate the impact of collaboration on innovation performance taking into consideration a portfolio of external partners (customers, suppliers and universities) at different stages (idea generation, R&D, design, testing and market launch) of the new product development (NPD) process. Both papers rely on representative data of German firms from a wide range of industries. It sticks out that performance effects of external collaborations are highly partner-specific. Moreover firms of different size and in different technological environments can reap the benefits of external collaborations at distinct stages of the NPD process. The third paper investigates the determinants of demand at marktes for technology (MfT). At MfT disembodied knowledge (i.e. especially patents and licences) is traded at a certain price. The paper uses data from 20 industries in 24 European countries and provides almost exclusive evidence for demand side factors that propel and contrain acquisitions at MfT.:I Acknowledgements II Tables III Figures IV Abbreviations 1. Introduction 1.1 Motivation and relevant strands of literature 1.2 Research questions and contribution of the dissertation 1.3 Abstracts of the research articles 1.3.1 Abstract chapter 2 1.3.2 Abstract chapter 3 1.3.3 Abstract chapter 4 1.4 Statement of co-authorship 2. Timing of external partnerships in low-tech and high-tech firms. When and with whom do collaborations pay off? 2.1 Introduction 2.2 Conceptual framework and hypothesis development 2.2.1 Customer collaboration 2.2.2 Supplier collaboration 2.2.3 University collaboration 2.3 Data and models 2.3.1 Database 2.3.2 Variables 2.3.3 Estimation model 2.4 Results 2.4.1 Descriptive statistics 2.4.2 Results from regression analysis 2.4.3 Robustness checks and extensions 2.5 Discussion and conclusion 2.5.1 General discussion 2.5.2 Managerial and policy implications 2.5.3 Limitations and concluding remarks References chapter 2 Appendices chapter 2 3. Alles F&E? Performanceeffekte phasenspezifischer externer Kooperation in KMU 3.1 Einleitung 3.2 Konzeptionelle Grundlagen 3.3 Theoretische Fundierung phasenspezifischer Effekte 3.3.1 Kooperation mit Kunden 3.3.2 Kooperation mit Lieferanten 3.3.3 Kooperation mit Universitäten 3.3.4 Zwischenfazit und Ableitung von Hypothesen 3.4 Daten und Operationalisierung 3.4.1 Datensatz 3.4.2 Abhängige Variable 3.4.3 Unabhängige Variablen 3.4.4 Kontrollvariablen 3.5 Empirische Strategie und Ergebnisse 3.5.1 Deskriptive Statistiken 3.5.2 Ergebnisse aus den Regressionsverfahren 3.5.3 Robustheitsprüfungen und Erweiterungen 3.6 Diskussion und Implikationen für Forschung und Praxis 3.6.1 Diskussion 3.6.2 Implikationen für die Praxis 3.6.3 Limitationen und zukünftige Forschungsfelder Literaturverzeichnis Kapitel 3 Anhang Kapitel 3 4. Markets for Technology in Europe – Mapping Demand and its Drivers 4.1 Introduction 4.2 Theoretical framework 4.2.1 The size of markets for technology 4.2.2 The nature of demand on markets for technology 4.3 Drivers of demand on markets for technology 4.3.1 Sectoral patterns of innovation 4.3.2 Technological leadership of industries 4.4 Data and Methods 4.4.1 Data 4.4.2 Variables 4.5 Results 4.5.1 Mapping markets for technology 4.5.2 Descriptive results 4.5.3 Regression results 4.5.4 Robustness checks 4.6 Discussion 4.7 Conclusion References chapter 4 5. Summary and concluding remarks 5.1 Contribution to empirical research 5.2 Limitations and future research directions 5.3 Implications for managers and policy makers 5.3.1 Implications for managers 5.3.2 Implications for policy makers Reference list Appendices / Die vorgelegte kumulative Dissertationsschrift umfasst drei unterschiedliche wissenschaftliche Aufsätze, welche sich mit unterschiedlichen Strategien der Beschaffung von unternehmensexternem Wissens befassen. Die beiden ersten Aufsätze untersuchen den Einfluss von Kooperationen mit verschiedenen externen Partnern (Kunden, Lieferanten und Universitäten) auf den Innovationserfolg von Unternehmen. Dazu wird die Kooperation mit den gewählten Partnergruppen in 5 Phasen des Neuproduktentwicklungsprozesses (NPD) (Ideenfindung, F&E, Design, Testen und Prüfen, Markteinführung) untersucht. Beide Aufsätze nutzen repräsentative Daten von deutschen Unternehmen, welche ein breites Spektrum an Branchen umfassen. Gemessene Performanceeffekte sind dabei hochgradig partnerspezifisch. Überdies profitieren Unternehmen je nach eigener Größe und technologischem Umfeld in unterschiedlichen Phasen des NPD-Prozesses von externen Kooperationen. Der dritte Aufsatz untersucht Determinanten der Nachfrage auf sogenannten Märkten für Technologie (MfT). Auf MfT wird unverkörpertes Wissen (insb. in Form von Patenten und Lizenzen) zu einem bestimmten Preis gehandelt. Die Studie beruht auf Daten aus 20 Branchen in 24 europäischen Ländern und liefert nahezu exklusive Evidenzen dafür, welche Faktoren die Nachfrage nach unverkörperter Technologie treiben und beschränken.:I Acknowledgements II Tables III Figures IV Abbreviations 1. Introduction 1.1 Motivation and relevant strands of literature 1.2 Research questions and contribution of the dissertation 1.3 Abstracts of the research articles 1.3.1 Abstract chapter 2 1.3.2 Abstract chapter 3 1.3.3 Abstract chapter 4 1.4 Statement of co-authorship 2. Timing of external partnerships in low-tech and high-tech firms. When and with whom do collaborations pay off? 2.1 Introduction 2.2 Conceptual framework and hypothesis development 2.2.1 Customer collaboration 2.2.2 Supplier collaboration 2.2.3 University collaboration 2.3 Data and models 2.3.1 Database 2.3.2 Variables 2.3.3 Estimation model 2.4 Results 2.4.1 Descriptive statistics 2.4.2 Results from regression analysis 2.4.3 Robustness checks and extensions 2.5 Discussion and conclusion 2.5.1 General discussion 2.5.2 Managerial and policy implications 2.5.3 Limitations and concluding remarks References chapter 2 Appendices chapter 2 3. Alles F&E? Performanceeffekte phasenspezifischer externer Kooperation in KMU 3.1 Einleitung 3.2 Konzeptionelle Grundlagen 3.3 Theoretische Fundierung phasenspezifischer Effekte 3.3.1 Kooperation mit Kunden 3.3.2 Kooperation mit Lieferanten 3.3.3 Kooperation mit Universitäten 3.3.4 Zwischenfazit und Ableitung von Hypothesen 3.4 Daten und Operationalisierung 3.4.1 Datensatz 3.4.2 Abhängige Variable 3.4.3 Unabhängige Variablen 3.4.4 Kontrollvariablen 3.5 Empirische Strategie und Ergebnisse 3.5.1 Deskriptive Statistiken 3.5.2 Ergebnisse aus den Regressionsverfahren 3.5.3 Robustheitsprüfungen und Erweiterungen 3.6 Diskussion und Implikationen für Forschung und Praxis 3.6.1 Diskussion 3.6.2 Implikationen für die Praxis 3.6.3 Limitationen und zukünftige Forschungsfelder Literaturverzeichnis Kapitel 3 Anhang Kapitel 3 4. Markets for Technology in Europe – Mapping Demand and its Drivers 4.1 Introduction 4.2 Theoretical framework 4.2.1 The size of markets for technology 4.2.2 The nature of demand on markets for technology 4.3 Drivers of demand on markets for technology 4.3.1 Sectoral patterns of innovation 4.3.2 Technological leadership of industries 4.4 Data and Methods 4.4.1 Data 4.4.2 Variables 4.5 Results 4.5.1 Mapping markets for technology 4.5.2 Descriptive results 4.5.3 Regression results 4.5.4 Robustness checks 4.6 Discussion 4.7 Conclusion References chapter 4 5. Summary and concluding remarks 5.1 Contribution to empirical research 5.2 Limitations and future research directions 5.3 Implications for managers and policy makers 5.3.1 Implications for managers 5.3.2 Implications for policy makers Reference list Appendices