Chungwon Woo

Value capture mechanism: R & D productivity comparison of SMEs

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine which value capture strategies are efficient in the invention stage and commercialization stage for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Design/methodology/approach – According to the characteristic of four primary value capture strategies, the authors categorized the formal-oriented strategy (patent), informal-oriented strategies (secrecy, lead-time), mix strategies (both formal and informal strategies), and whether to invest in complementary assets. In order to assess R & D productivity based on value capture strategy, this paper applied the two-stage data envelopment analysis for data collected from Korea Innovation Survey 2010. The sample was made up of 640 SMEs in manufacturing industry. Findings – The results suggest that informal strategy (secrecy, lead-time) is efficient in the invention stage. Furthermore, mixed use of formal (patent) and informal strategies results in higher productivity in the commercialization stage. Lastly, the results suggest...