Carine Peeters

Microfoundations of Internal and External Absorptive Capacity Routines

The 20 years following the introduction of the seminal construct of absorptive capacity (AC) by Cohen and Levinthal (Cohen, W. M., D. A. Levinthal. 1989. Innovation and learning: The two faces of RD Cohen, W. M., D. A. Levinthal. 1990. Absorptive capacity: A new perspective on learning and innovation. Admin. Sci. Quart.35(1) 128--152) have seen the proliferation of a vast literature citing the AC construct in over 10,000 published papers, chapters, and books, and interpreting it or applying it in many areas of organization science research, including organization theory, strategic management, and economics. However, with very few exceptions, the specific organizational routines and processes that constitute AC capabilities remain a black box. In this paper, we propose a routine-based model of AC as a first step toward the operationalization of the AC construct. Our intent is to direct attention to the importance of balancing internal knowledge creating processes with the identification, acquisition, and assimilation of new knowledge originating in the external environment. We decompose the construct of AC into two components, internal and external AC capabilities, and identify the configuration of metaroutines underlying these two components. These higher-level routines are expressed within organizations by configurations of empirically observable practiced routines that are idiosyncratic and firm specific. Therefore, we conceptualize metaroutines as the foundations of practiced routines. The ability of organizations to discover and implement complementarities between AC routines may explain why some firms are successful early adopters and most firms are imitators. Success as an early adopter of a new management practice or an innovation is expected to depend on the extent to which an organization evolves, adapts, and implements the configuration of its internal and external absorptive capacity routines.

Sources of Variation in the Efficiency of Adopting Management Innovation: The Role of Absorptive Capacity Routines, Managerial Attention and Organizational Legitimacy

Drawing on two in-depth case studies, this paper develops a conceptual model of how absorptive capacity routines and their underlying processes of evolution influence the efficiency of management innovation adaptation processes. The model highlights three important relations. First, although different configurations of absorptive capacity routines can lead to the successful implementation of the same management innovation – namely the reconfiguration of firms’ value chains through sourcing of business services from offshore countries – the sequence of developing routines, their adequacy, and the interdependencies fit between routines partly explain how rapidly and seamlessly a firm is able to implement a management innovation. Second, we identify managerial attention and organizational legitimacy as two critical and interrelated sources of variation of the efficiency in the process of adopting and adapting management innovations. Finally, attention direction by a top-level internal change agent is more effective than local problemistic search to foster managerial attention and organizational legitimacy to both the management innovation to be adopted, and the need to develop and put into practice an appropriate set of absorptive capacity routines.

Economic and management perspectives on intellectual property rights

PART III: INNOVATION MANAGEMENT AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS What Is Defferent about Innovation in Asia; A. De Meyer, S. Garg How Do the Speed, Science Linkage, Focus and New Entry Matter in IT Inventions?; S. Nagaoka Complex Innovation Strategies and Patenting Behaviour; C. Peters, B. Van Pottelsberghe de la Potterie On the Relationship Between Patent an Venture Capital; A. Romain, . B. Van Pottelsberghe de la Potterie

Fine-Slicing Global Value Chains: A Protection for Proprietary Content (WITHDRAWN)

This study shows that firms adjust the scope of activities entrusted to foreign services production units to adapt their knowledge and content protection strategy to the availability of strong legal protection or internal control mechanisms. We hypothesize and empirically confirm that, when the above mechanisms are not available, firms use the substitute protection mechanism of “fine- slicing” foreign value chain activities to exploit the complementarities that exist between tasks and reduce misappropriation hazard. We also find a positive moderating effect of firm country-specific experience and content value on the propensity to use the fine-slicing mechanism.

Understanding the patenting behaviour of firms

This book brings together innovative contributions on the management of intellectual property (IP) and intellectual property rights by an esteemed and multi-disciplinary group of economists, management scientists, accountants and lawyers.

Introduction: Advanced Research Findings and Fields for Further Research in Economics and Management of Intellectual Property

The role of intellectual property (IP), and more precisely the role of patents, is increasingly considered as a major issue for managers and policy-makers. At the firm level, patents are used as a legal protection means for innovative products and processes, and as a strategic tool in technological negotiations. At the country level, the patent system aims at fostering research efforts and innovation, and ultimately economic growth.

Complex innovation strategies and patenting behaviour

In the last decades, with the rise of innovation as the engine of growth for firms, sectors and nations, patents have gained a central place in business and policy debates. The primary objective of a patent is to provide a legally enforceable protection against imitation to any invention that can demonstrate a sufficient innovative step and that satisfies the criteria of non-obviousness and industrial application. In that sense, the observation of a patent obviously witnesses the presence of some kind of innovation. But patents do not only serve as a protection mechanism. They are also highly valuable strategic tools for firms seeking to develop strong technological positions and build competitive advantage. Patents as defenders of a firm’s innovation rents, and patents as builders of a firm’s technological and competitive position, both perspectives justify the interest in deepening our understanding of what determines a firm’s patenting behaviour.