Bart Leten

Technological Activities and Their Impact on the Financial Performance of the Firm: Exploitation and Exploration within and between Firms

This paper analyzes the consequences for financial performance of technology strategies categorized along two dimensions: (1) explorative versus exploitative and (2) solitary versus collaborative. The financial performance implications of firms’ positioning along these two dimensions has important managerial implications, but has received only limited attention in prior studies. Drawing on organizational learning theory and technology alliances literature, a set of hypotheses on the performance implications of firms’ technology strategies are derived. These hypotheses are tested empirically on a panel dataset (1996-2003) of 168 R&D-intensive firms based in Japan, the US and Europe and situated in five different industries (chemicals, pharmaceuticals, ICT, electronics, non-electrical machinery). Patent data are used to construct indicators of explorative versus exploitative technological activities (activities in new or existing technology domains) and collaborative versus solitary technological activities (joint versus single patent ownership). The financial performance of firms is measured via a market value indicator: Tobin’s Q index.

IP Models to Orchestrate Innovation Ecosystems: IMEC, a public research institute in nano-electronics

Companies increasingly organize innovation activities within innovation ecosystems. This study illustrates the central role of the IP-model that an orchestrator develops for the innovation ecosystem partners. The governance of IP is instrumental for the success of innovation ecosystems as it determines the value appropriation potential for the ecosystem partners and positively influences the success of innovation ecosystems. The insights are based on a case study of IMEC, a public research institute in nano-electronics. IMEC has an IP-based orchestration model for innovation ecosystems through multi-party research collaborations between public and private firms.

Does Excellence in Academic Research Attract Foreign R&D?

We examine the role of host countries’ academic research strengths in global R&D location decisions by multinational firms. While we expect that a firm’s propensity to perform R&D in a host country increases with the strength of local academic research, firms are expected to be heterogeneously positioned to benefit from academic research strengths due to differences in the capacity to absorb and utilize scientific knowledge. We find support for these conjectures in an analysis of foreign R&D activities in 40 host countries and 30 technology fields by 176 leading European, US and Japanese firms during the periods 1995-1998 and 1999-2002. Controlling for a wide range of host country factors, the number of relevant ISI publications by scientists based in the host country has a substantial positive impact on the propensity to conduct foreign R&D. The effect of academic research is significantly larger for firms with a stronger science orientation in R&D - as indicated by citations to scientific literature in prior patents. For host countries with a strong relevant science base, this greater responsiveness of science oriented firms more than offsets a generally greater inclination to concentrate R&D at home. The findings appear robust across a variety of specifications.

Academic research strengths and multinational firms’ foreign R&D location decisions: evidence from R&D investments in European regions

Although an expanding literature on university–industry linkages has suggested that proximity to academia can increase the innovative performance of firms, the role of academic research in the R&D location choices of multinational firms has received surprisingly little attention. In this paper we analyze the extent to which academic research in host regions of EU-15 countries attracts R&D investments by multinational firms. We analyze the determinants of the location of 394 multinational R&D projects in NUTS-1 regions of EU-15 countries during the period 2003–08. We construct precise measures of the academic research strengths of regions from annual publication data from Thomson Reuters Web of Science. University publications are counted at the level of regions and science fields, and measure academic research relevant for investing firms by linking science fields to the industries in which firms are active. We find that the probability of R&D projects being located in a host region is positively affected by the host regions academic strength—after controlling for industry agglomeration, the technological strength of the region, R&D tax incentives, and other characteristics of host locations. Our results further suggest that a major mechanism through which academic research attracts foreign R&D is the supply of PhD graduates.

The Market Value of Blocking Patent Citations

There is a growing literature that aims at assessing the private value of knowledge assets and patents. It has been shown that patents and their quality as measured by citations received by future patents contribute significantly to the market value of firms beyond their R&D stocks. This paper goes one step further and distinguishes between different types of forward citations patents can receive at the European Patent Office. While a patent can be cited as non-infringing state of the art, it can also be cited because it threatens the novelty of patent applications (“blocking citations�?). Empirical results from a market value model for a sample of large, R&D-intensive U.S., European and Japanese firms show that patents frequently cited as blocking references have a higher economic value for their owners than patents cited for nonblocking reasons. This finding adds to the patent value literature by showing that different types of patent citations carry different information on the economic value of patents. The result further suggests that the total number of forward citations can be an imprecise measure of patent value.

Academic Research Strengths and Multinational Firms’ Foreign R&D Location Decisions: Evidence from Foreign R&D Projects in European Regions

Although an expanding literature on university-industry linkages has suggested that proximity to academia can increase the innovative performance of firms, the role of academic research in the R&D location choices by multinational firms has received surprisingly little attention. In this paper we analyze to what extent academic research in host regions of EU-15 countries attracts R&D investments by multinational firms. We analyze the determinants of the location of 394 multinational R&D projects in NUTS-1 regions of EU-15 countries during the period 2003-2008. We construct precise measures of the academic research strengths of regions by using annual WoS publication data. We count university publications at the level of regions and science fields, and measure relevant publications for investing firms by linking science fields to the industry that firms are active in. We find that the probability to locate R&D projects in a host region is positively affected by the host region’s academic strength - after controlling for industry agglomeration, the technological strength of the region, R&D tax incentives, and other characteristics of host locations. Our results further suggest that in addition to providing knowledge spillovers, a major mechanism through which academic research attracts foreign R&D is the supply of graduates with a PhD.

Internal Basic Research, External Basic Research and the Technological Performance of Pharmaceutical Firms

We evaluate the impact of basic research on pharmaceutical firms technological performance, distinguishing between internal basic research and the exploitation of external basic research findings. We find that firms increase their performance by engaging more in internal basic research, in particular if basic research is conducted in collaboration with university scientists. The exploitation of external basic research improves performance, while the magnitude increases with firms involvement in internal basic research. Hence, internal basic research and the exploitation of external basic research are complements, suggesting that internal basic research provides firms with the skills to exploit external basic research more effectively.

Developing Technology in the Vicinity of Science: Do Firms Benefit? An Overview and Empirical Assessment on the Level of Italian Provinces

This timely book brings together cutting-edge research on the important subject of science and innovation policies. The contributors – distinguished social science scholars – tackle the key challenges of designing and implementing public policies in the context of the new knowledge economy.

Do Firms Benefit from Being Present in Technology Clusters? Evidence from a Panel of Biopharmaceutical Firms

This paper investigates whether firms active in biotechnology can improve their technological performance by developing R&D activities in technology clusters. Regions that host a concentration of biotechnology activity are identified as technology clusters (level of US states, Japanese prefectures and European NUTS2 regions). A fixed effect panel data analysis on a set of 59 biopharmaceutical firms (period 1995-2002) provides evidence for a positive, albeit diminishing (inverted-U shape) relationship between the number of technology clusters in which a firm is present and its total technological performance. This effect is distinct from a mere multi-location effect.

Scientific Research, Firm Heterogeneity and Foreign R&D Locations of Multinational Firms

We examine the influence of host countries’ scientific research strengths on global R&D location choices by multinational firms. In an analysis of 277 new R&D activities identified for 175 firms in 40 host countries and 30 technology fields, we find that the strength of relevant university research positively affects the likelihood that host countries attract foreign R&D. When allowing for firm heterogeneity, university scientific research appears only a significant factor for firms with a strong science orientation in their R&D activities. Host countries’ corporate scientific research has no systematic influence on R&D location choices. Empirical results are replicated in an analysis at the regional level covering regions in Europe the US, and Japan.