The regimes of today that regulate and protect Intellectual Property Rights are based on Western cultural and philosophical values. This realization leads to the supposition that culture may influence the notion of patents. This raised the question of whether patent valuation would underlie a cultural bias. If patents are important in international business it is evident that a cultural impact on patent valuation would have significant implications and necessitate dedicated investigation. A literature review confirmed a knowledge gap in this area. This work, therefore, aims to investigate cultural impact on patent valuation. A distinction is made between a valuation from an ethical point of view and an economic valuation. Following a mixed methods approach, this research applies semi-structured interviews to create survey items for a questionnaire that then provides data that can be analyzed statistically and qualitatively. For quality assurance, a pre-questionnaire is used as an intermediate step. The results of the quantitative and qualitative analyses are subject to a between-method triangulation, which is interpreted in the following discussion in the light of relevant theory. The findings of this investigation confirm that there is indeed a cultural impact on the notion of patents. Two cultural dimensions, “Uncertainty Avoidance” and “Institutional Collectivism” correlate significantly with ethical patent valuation. Furthermore, it is not the complete cultural dimension, “Future Orientation”, but a specific aspect of it that correlates with economic patent valuation. A relationship between standpoints towards the ethical valuation of patents and economic patent valuation could not be proven. The research questions of what cultural dimensions have an impact on patent valuation and how and why they impact are answered. In addition, this work provides a model that represents cultural impact on patent valuation.
Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:745062 |
Date | January 2016 |
Creators | Reber, Michael |
Contributors | Thomas, Brychan ; Warren, Vessela |
Publisher | University of Gloucestershire |
Source Sets | Ethos UK |
Detected Language | English |
Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
Source | http://eprints.glos.ac.uk/5701/ |
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