Technological Diversification to Green Domains: Technological Relatedness,Invention Impact and Knowledge Integration Capabilities

Climate changes and ecological challenges often motivate firms to diversify into environmental domains. However, this does not guarantee impactful inventions. Therefore, this study investigates how firms can create impactful environmental inventions based on their technological relatedness and prior knowledge integration capabilities. Using a unique dataset of 1,990 high-tech Chinese firms between 2006 and 2016, our results reveal that diversifying firms’ green technological relatedness has an inverted U-shaped relationship with invention impact. While the depth of firms’ knowledge integration capabilities steepens this relationship, the breadth flattens it. Higher levels of depth capability result in a greater impact, while greater breadth leads to an early attainment of peak invention impact at a lower degree of green technological relatedness. Theoretical and policy implications are discussed.     

Knowledge space oddity: How to increase the intensity and relevance of the technological progress of European regions

This work contributes to previous research on the relationship between specific features of a regional knowledge space and the technological progress of the region. In particular, the main element of originality of this work is to have singled out the determinants of the technological progress intensity and relevance. We acknowledge the importance of knowledge assets for new knowledge production, and we identify path-dependent processes that allow a region to become increasingly competitive in terms of innovation potential. In particular, adopting an evolutionary view of regional development, we describe the regional knowledge space through four crucial characteristics: 1) technological knowledge base, 2) technological cumulativeness, 3) technological diversification, and 4) technological relatedness. We then measure to what extent each of the knowledge space’s characteristics differently affects the technological progress intensity and relevance of the region. A longitudinal study of 269 European regions over the period 1996–2012 was organized using data from REGPAT and Eurostat databases. Results show that technological relatedness affects positively both the intensity and relevance of the technological progress of European regions and that the other components of the knowledge space show a different impact on the two features of the technological progress. Finally, implications for EU policies supporting and stimulating regional technological progress are discussed.     

Why are some independent inventors ‘heroes’ and others ‘hobbyists’? The moderating role of technological diversity and specialization

Despite a substantial body of research investigating the market significance of inventions by independent inventors, relatively little attention has been devoted to understanding their technological significance. A recent study conducted by [Dahlin, K., Taylor, M., Fichman, M., 2004. Today's Edisons or weekend hobbyists: technical impact and success of inventions by independent inventors. Res. Policy 33, 1167-1183] on the tennis racket industry shows that independent inventors are a heterogeneous group which includes both “heroes” who contribute substantially to technological progress and “hobbyists” who make only a marginal contribution. What is not asked - and therefore not explained - is why this distinction arises. In this paper, we focus on the type of prior technological knowledge (in terms of technological specialization and diversity) applied by independent inventors and their corporate counterparts as a factor explaining differences in technological impact. Our empirical setting is the field of medical equipment technology. We find that independent inventors are more sensitive to the negative effects of technological diversity than their corporate counterparts. Furthermore, our study reveals that technological specialization pays off more for independent inventors than for their corporate counterparts. Therefore, those independent inventors who apply low degrees of diversity and high degrees of specialization are capable of reaching the same level as or even outperforming their corporate counterparts, thus becoming “heroes”. Based on our findings, we discuss implications for research and corporate practice.     

Greenfield foreign direct investments and regional environmental technologies

This paper builds on (eco-)innovation geography and international business studies to investigate the effects of greenfield foreign direct investments (FDIs) on regional specialisation in environmental technologies. Combining the OECD-REGPAT and the fDi Markets datasets with respect to 1,050 European NUTS3 regions over the 2003–2014 period, we find that FDIs can positively impact regions’ specialisation in green technologies. This effect is statistically significant when FDIs occur in industries where environmental patents represent a relatively high share of total inventive activities (green-tech FDIs), and it is further reinforced if such foreign investments involve R&D activities. We also find that green-tech R&D FDIs have a larger effect in regions whose prior knowledge base is highly unrelated to environmental technologies. Furthermore, green-tech FDIs in R&D contribute to maintaining the specialisation of regions in environmental technologies over time, while it is only for high levels of unrelatedness that such FDIs help regions acquire a green-tech specialisation ex novo.     

Green Technologies and diversity in the knowledge search and output phases: Evidence from European Patents

The aim of this study is to investigate technological diversity in the knowledge search and the knowledge output stages of the green inventive process. Exploiting a large sample of European patent data, from 1980 to 2013, the paper explores the degree of diversity in green inventions, comparing the recombinant features of green technologies with a control sample of non-green technologies selected through propensity score matching techniques. Empirical results suggest that green technologies show a higher degree of diversity of the knowledge sources and a higher technological diversity in how knowledge is effectively recombined. We further find that the green diversity premium is higher in the knowledge output phase than in the knowledge search phase. We conclude that the assessment of the role of technological diversity along the different phases of the invention process may improve the appropriate organization of innovative activities and policy design necessary for stimulating green technological developments and support a feasible sustainable transition.     

Not all technologies are created equal for stakeholders: Constituency statutes,firm stakeholder orientation and investments in technology generality

Previous research has analyzed the effect of stakeholder orientation on the amount of technological investment firms make but has ignored its effect on the characteristics of that investment. To address this gap, we explored the impact of stakeholder orientation on the degree of generality of a firm's technological investment. More general technologies (i.e., technologies easily deployable in a wider range of industries) are more likely to promote major changes in the firm's scope. However, these changes undermine the value of stakeholders’ past relationship-specific investments, which are tailored to a certain firm scope. Therefore, more stakeholder-oriented firms will invest in less general technological assets to reduce stakeholder concerns and opposition. This negative effect will be stronger in more uncertain industries, where stakeholders are more concerned that firms might use technology generality to change their scope following the realization of previously unforeseen contingencies. However, it will be weaker in more competitive industries, where stakeholders tend to make less relationship-specific investments and are less concerned with changes in firm scope triggered by an increase in technology generality. We test our hypotheses by exploiting the enactment of constituency statutes in 34 U.S. states during the period 1976–2000 as a plausibly exogenous variation in firms’ stakeholder orientation.     

The complex nature of regional knowledge production: Evidence on European regions

Knowledge creation is widely considered as the central driver for innovation, and accordingly, for creating competitive advantage. However, most measurement approaches have so far mainly focused on the quantitative dimension of knowledge creation, neglecting that not all knowledge has the same value (Balland and Rigby, 2017). The notion of knowledge complexity has come into use in this context just recently as an attempt to measure the quality of knowledge in terms of its uniqueness and its replicability. The central underlying assumption is that more complex knowledge is more difficult to be replicated, and therefore provides a higher competitive advantage for firms, or at an aggregated level, regions and countries. The objective of this study is to advance and apply measures for regional knowledge complexity to a set of European regions, and to highlight its potential in a regional policy context. This is done by, first, characterising the spatial distribution of complex knowledge in Europe and its dynamics in recent years, second, establishing that knowledge complexity is associated with future regional economic growth, and third, illustrating the usefulness of the measures by means of some policy relevant example applications. We proxy the production of complex knowledge with a regional knowledge complexity index (KCI) that is based on regional patent data of European metropolitan regions from current EU and EFTA member countries. The results are promising as the regional KCI unveils knowledge creation patterns not observed by conventional measures. Moreover, regional complexity measures can be easily combined with relatedness metrics to support policy makers in a smart specialisation context.     

国外“智慧专业化战略”研究述评

随着经济的发展和专业化分工日益精细,智慧专业化战略为区域科技政策和科技战略发展提供了一个全新思路。智慧专业化战略是一个充满活力和生机的概念,作为“欧盟2020”战略主要框架在欧洲地区得到广泛的宣传和实践。基于智慧专业化战略提出背景,分析智慧专业化战略的概念演进及其特征,探讨其对区域创新驱动发展的影响。从智慧专业化战略的内涵和逻辑结构分析智慧专业化战略的本质,从政策制定和步骤研究分析智慧专业化战略的实施,从评价内容、评价标准和评价模型分析智慧专业化战略的评价。通过介绍国外智慧专业化战略实施方面的案例,为我国区域创新驱动发展提供借鉴和参考。     

The technological origins of radical inventions

This paper aims to trace down the origins of radical inventions. In spite of many theoretical discussions on the effect of radical inventions, the specific nature of radical inventions has received much less attention in the theoretical and empirical literature. We try to fill that void by an empirical investigation into the specific origins of radical inventions. We explore this issue by a close examination of 157 individual patents, which are selected from a pool of more than 300,000 patents. In contrast to the conventional wisdom that radical inventions are based less on existing knowledge, we find that they are to a higher degree based on existing knowledge than non-radical inventions. A further result that follows from our analysis is that radical inventions are induced by the recombination over more knowledge domains. The combination of knowledge from domains that might usually not be connected seems to deliver more radical inventions.     

Nest without birds: Inventor mobility and the left-behind patents

The mobility of inventors leaves behind their patented inventions at sourcing firms, yet there is little scholarly insight into how firms handle those intellectual properties. We investigate this important issue by developing a framework of tacit-codified knowledge interdependence. We theorize that tacit and codified knowledge offer the intellectual and legal pillars of corporate inventions, which complement each other in value creation. Inventor mobility decouples the two pillars and reduces the maintenance likelihood of the left-behind patents. The negative impact is greater for inventions that are complex or rely less on internal prior art because the tacit knowledge loss is more destructive and unrecoverable. However, when inventors move to competing or litigious target firms, the relationship between mobility and patent maintenance becomes less negative or even turns positive because the left-behind patents can be leveraged to hedge against the risk of knowledge leakage. Applying a two-stage Coarsened Exact Matching approach to construct a sample of 36,204 U.S. patents with comparable leaving and staying inventors from public firms between 1983 and 2010, we find strong evidence supporting our framework. Our findings highlight the intricate interdependence of tacit and codified knowledge in corporate inventions and add to the literatures on inventor mobility and intellectual property management.     

自有知识、知识溢出与区域创新产出

立足于区域边界的内外部视角,将创新活动的知识资源划分为自有知识和知识溢出两部分,利用2009—2016年中国30个省（市、自治区）的面板数据,运用OLS和分位数回归方法,实证分析了自有知识、知识溢出对区域创新产出的影响。OLS回归结果表明：自有知识对区域创新产出具有显著正向影响,而知识溢出的影响显著为负;自有知识的主效应大于知识溢出,且二者在影响区域创新过程中存在显著的协同效应。分位数回归结果表明：随着分位点的提高,自有知识对区域创新产出的促进效应先升后降;知识溢出对区域创新产出除在0.25分位点没有显著影响外,在其他分位点均存在显著负向影响;自有知识与知识溢出的交互效应在区域创新产出不同分位点的影响不一致。     

The heterogeneous effects of patent scope on licensing propensity

How does patent scope influence licensing propensity of inventions? Prior studies have often been confined to specific industries or settings, and their results have been mixed with studies showing a positive, a negative, or even no significant relationship. Also, while some have explored moderating factors that might influence the patent scope-licensing relationship, a systematic investigation of the heterogeneous effects of patent scope on licensing at the invention level has not been undertaken. This study combines a broad sample of publicly reported patent licensing agreements and a novel methodology that captures an exogenous variation in patent scope to re-investigate the relationship between patent scope and licensing and to explore key invention and inventor characteristics that could influence this relationship. The results show that narrowed patent scope leads to a substantial decline in licensing propensity of inventions and that the effect is stronger for high-quality, science-based, and novel inventions as well as for inventions generated by small inventors.     

知识组合多样性、新颖性与突破性发明形成

突破性技术发明在企业参与全球技术和市场竞争中的作用已经得到广泛认可,但如何才能创造产生突破性技术发明仍是学术界和企业界关注的热点问题。本文基于知识搜索重组视角和团队学习理论,重点考察知识组合多样性、新颖性对突破性技术发明形成的直接影响程度和交互影响效应,并揭示发明人团队规模对知识组合特征与突破性技术发明形成关系的调节作用。基于美国专利商标局（USPTO）1989-2012年纳米技术领域的8334条授权发明专利进行实证检验,结果发现：（1）与知识组合多样性相比,知识组合新颖性对突破性技术发明形成的正向影响更为显著;同时,知识组合多样性与知识组合新颖性对突破性技术发明的形成具有显著的正向交互作用。（2）发明人团队规模对知识组合多样性与突破性技术发明形成的关系具有显著的正向调节作用,而对知识组合新颖性与突破性技术发明形成关系的负向调节作用不显著。本研究从知识元素和发明人视角系统揭示了突破性技术发明的形成机制,对企业面向突破性技术发明的发明人团队构建及知识组合战略实施具有重要启示。     

Categorical coherence, classification volatility and examiner-added citations

Patent applicants and examiners do not always have the same views about what constitutes a patent's relevant prior art. We propose that the processes of categorization and classification variably shape the interface between applicants and examiners by influencing assessments of similarity between new and existing technologies. Some inventions sit in technological domains that cut across the categorical boundaries implied by examiners’ patterns of specialization. Some sit in domains wherein the classification system that guides examiner searches is more volatile. In either of these circumstances, heightened ambiguity leads to more examiner-added citations on patents that are granted. We test and confirm our predictions in a sample of patents granted to semiconductor firms in 2005.     

Today's Edisons or weekend hobbyists: technical merit and success of inventions by independent inventors

We set out to determine if independent inventors can be considered “heroes” or “hobbyists”, that is, if they produce the most or the least influential inventions in a product category. We study patented inventions by independent and firm-based inventors by comparing patents along four dimensions: Patent citation impact, detail, scope, and maintenance. Examining 225 tennis racket patents granted in the US between 1981 and 1991, we find that independent inventors are a heterogeneous group who generate inventions that are overrepresented both among the most impactful and the least impactful patents. The metrics we develop provide insight into ex ante identification of the importance of inventions.     

外部知识源化、知识积累与中国工业绿色增长——动态异质门槛效应研究

针对开放式创新驱动与绿色发展融合下工业绿色增长路径及动力来源多元化特征，基于中国工业2009-2015省际面板数据，通过考虑非期望产出的Super-SBM模型测算环境和能源约束下的工业绿色增长结构，并采用改进的动态门槛回归模型，从地区知识积累视角系统探究外部知识源化路径驱动工业绿色增长机制的知识积累动态门槛效应及其时空异质性。研究表明：中国工业绿色增长整体水平较低，地区异质性显著；总体上，外部知识源化对工业绿色增长起到了正向作用，但其存在显著的知识积累异质门槛特征：知识积累一旦突破了临界规模，外部知识源化路径驱动工业绿色增长的正向效应则呈现减弱，且知识积累门槛时空分布存在较大差异。     

技术流动、创新网络对区域创新能力的影响研究

基于中国2013-2018年的省级面板数据,构建模型讨论了区域创新网络、高技术企业技术流动对区域创新能力的作用机制,进一步分析了不同创新网络水平地区,高技术企业技术流动对区域创新发展的作用力,利用门槛回归探究了随着区域网络水平的演进,技术市场中高技术企业技术输出和吸纳的变化态势。实证结果表明：（1）区域创新网络、高技术企业技术输出和技术吸纳均有助于区域创新能力的提升,但作用机制和强度不同;（2）相对创新网络欠发达地区,在创新网络发达地区的高技术企业的技术创新具有正向的自我强化机制,但创新网络的作用力稍弱;（3）无论创新网络发达/欠发达地区,高技术企业技术吸纳对区域创新能力的促进作用均大于技术输出;（4）随着创新网络水平的提升,高技术企业技术流动对区域创新能力的影响作用逐渐减弱。     

The geography of scientific citations

Science’s main norms prescribe scientists to use citations as acknowledgements of cognitive content irrespective of geographical location. Previous studies, however, suggested that there is a considerable geographical bias in scientific citations. We argue that this geographical bias does not, in itself, falsify the notion that citations reflect acknowledgement of cognitive content, because cognitively related knowledge may be geographically concentrated as well. We analyse the role of organizational, regional and national co-location on citation likelihood for 5.5 million article pairs, and find that the geographical bias in citations is weak once cognitive relatedness is accounted for. Furthermore, we find that the effect of co-location on citation likelihood is strongest at the organizational level, weaker at the regional level, and weakest at the national level. In addition, we show that geographical co-location particularly increases the citation likelihood between two papers when knowledge relatedness between articles is low, suggesting that interdisciplinary research benefits most from co-location. Finally, we find that, when knowledge relatedness is high, the effect of geographical co-location on citation likelihood is non-existent. We discuss the implications regarding policies aimed to discourage strategic citations and to foster interdisciplinary research.     

Design and environmental technologies: Does ‘green-matching’ actually help?

This paper investigates whether a green kind of design helps firms increase their capabilities for inventing in the environmental domain and whether it does so more than ‘standard’ design. It also investigates whether the effect of ‘green-matching’ between new design and technologies is conditional on firms’ innovative capabilities, as reflected by their R&D expenditure. We address these research questions with respect to the world's top R&D investors, looking at their intellectual property rights at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and proposing an original textual identification of green designs and trademarks. We find that green design increases environmental inventions by top R&D investors, and to a greater extent than non-environmental ones. Standard design also stimulates environmental inventions, but to a lesser extent than green design. The ‘green-matching’ actually helps, but internal innovative capabilities are required to make it effective: a green-tech ‘prize’ emerges from green design, but only once a minimum threshold of R&D expenditure has been reached.     

中国区域绿色创新与绿色发展的协同及互动

运用中国1997-2016年的省际面板数据对绿色创新和绿色发展水平进行综合评价,基于耦合协调模型对二者协同的时空演变趋势进行了考察,进而运用PVAR模型对其互动关系进行实证分析。结果显示：区域绿色创新与绿色发展的耦合度呈上升趋势,但协调度总体偏低,出现以濒临失调为中心、向良好协调与中度失调两边扩散的态势。就二者的动态关系来说,经济发达地区的绿色发展对其绿色创新冲击的响应更大,经济次发达地区的绿色发展对其绿色创新形成了正向冲击,而经济欠发达地区二者的相互作用关系却不是很显著。