Intellectual property protection in collaborative innovation activities within services

The research was motivated by the growing importance of inter-firm collaboration within service innovation, which encompasses the risk of knowledge-spillovers particularly due to the intangible service output. The intangibility of most service innovation thwarts applications of formal legal intellectual property mechanisms. Our empirical study provides data that shows evidence of a direct link between innovation partnering and the use of a broad range of intellectual property practices within service-intensive companies. The results show that informal protection mechanisms partially compensate incomplete formal mechanisms and largely prevent imitation and uncontrolled knowledge-spillovers across the duration of the partnership.

[1]  Ulrich Kaiser.  An empirical test of models explaining research expenditures and research cooperation: evidence for the German service sector , 2002 .

[2]  Todd R. Zenger,et al.  Organizational Economics: An Impending Revolution in Organization Theory? , 1990 .

[3]  I. Miles,et al.  Analysis of CIS Data on Innovation in the Service Sector [Final Report to European Commission by CRIC/IDSE/ISE] , 2001 .

[4]  W. Baker.  Market Networks and Corporate Behavior , 1990, American Journal of Sociology.

[5]  Christiane Hipp,et al.  Service peculiarities and the specific role of technology in service innovation management , 2008, Int. J. Serv. Technol. Manag..

[6]  R. Gulati.  Does Familiarity Breed Trust? The Implications of Repeated Ties for Contractual Choice in Alliances , 1995 .

[7]  Jeffrey H. Dyer,et al.  Alliance capability, stock market response, and long‐term alliance success: the role of the alliance function , 2002 .

[8]  G. Ahuja.  The duality of collaboration : Inducements and opportunities in the formation of interfirm linkages , 2000 .

[9]  James M. Utterback,et al.  A dynamic model of process and product innovation , 1975 .

[10]  Faïz Gallouj,et al.  Patterns of innovation organisation in service firms: postal survey results and theoretical models , 2001 .

[11]  Joanne E. Oxley,et al.  The Scope and Governance of International R&D Alliances , 2003 .

[12]  R. Gulati,et al.  The Architecture of Cooperation: Managing Coordination Costs and Appropriation Concerns in Strategic Alliances , 1998 .

[13]  R. Burt.  The contingent value of social capital. , 1997 .

[14]  Joseph L. Badaracco,et al.  The knowledge link : how firms compete through strategic alliances / Joseph L. Badaracco, Jr. , 1993 .

[15]  C. Shapiro,et al.  R&D Rivalry with Licensing or Imitation , 1987 .

[16]  K. Arrow.  Economic Welfare and the Allocation of Resources for Invention , 1962 .

[17]  Bhaskar Chakravorti.  The role of adoption networks in the success of innovations: a strategic perspective , 2004 .

[18]  R. Gulati,et al.  The dynamics of learning alliances: competition, cooperation, and relative scope , 1998 .

[19]  Diego Gambetta.  Trust : making and breaking cooperative relations , 1992 .

[20]  Valerie Peters,et al.  Understanding the Innovation Process: Innovation in Dynamic Service Industries , 1999 .

[21]  Roland Helm,et al.  Controlling contractual exchange risks in R&D interfirm cooperation: an empirical study , 2004 .

[22]  Jon Sundbo.  Management of Innovation in Services , 1997 .

[23]  Andrew C. Inkpen.  Learning, knowledge acquisition, and strategic alliances , 1998 .

[24]  G. D. N. Worswick,et al.  The Service Economy. , 1969 .

[25]  D. Collard,et al.  Trust : making and breaking cooperative relations , 1989 .

[26]  J. Oxley.  Appropriability Hazards and Governance in Strategic Alliances: A Transaction Cost Approach , 1997 .

[27]  I. Miles.  Research and Development (R&D) Beyond Manufacturing: The Strange Case of Services R&D , 2007 .

[28]  J. Rotter.  Interpersonal trust, trustworthiness, and gullibility. , 1980 .

[29]  Ulrich Kaiser.  Measuring knowledge spillovers in manufacturing and services: an empirical assessment of alternative approaches , 2002 .

[30]  Massimo G. Colombo,et al.  Alliance form: a test of the contractual and competence perspectives , 2003 .

[31]  Martin W. Wallin,et al.  A man on the inside: Unlocking communities as complementary assets , 2006 .

[32]  Katrin Ostertag.  Transaction cost economics , 2003 .

[33]  R. Barras.  Towards a theory of innovation in services , 1986 .

[34]  B. Borys,et al.  Hybrid Arrangements as Strategic Alliances: Theoretical Issues in Organizational Combinations , 1989 .

[35]  H. Grupp.  Spillover effects and the science base of innovations reconsidered: an empirical approach , 1996 .

[36]  R. Evangelista,et al.  Patents in the Service Industries , 2004 .

[37]  Daniel A. Levinthal,et al.  Innovation and Learning: The Two Faces of R&D , 1989 .

[38]  G. Pisano.  Profiting from innovation and the intellectual property revolution , 2006 .

[39]  Jeffrey L. Bradach,et al.  Price, Authority, and Trust: From Ideal Types to Plural Forms , 1989 .

[40]  A. Parasuraman,et al.  Communication and Control Processes in the Delivery of Service Quality , 1988 .

[41]  François Bar,et al.  Tapping User-Driven Innovation: A New Rationale for Universal Service , 2000, Inf. Soc..

[42]  Alexander Decker,et al.  The Sequential Incident Technique for Innovations (SITI) — A Tool for Generating Improvements and Ideas in Service Processes , 1999 .

[43]  C. Prahalad,et al.  The dominant logic: A new linkage between diversity and performance , 1986 .

[44]  D. Teece.  Inter-organizational Requirements of the Innovation Process , 2008 .

[45]  Faïz Gallouj,et al.  Innovation in Services: Issues at Stake and Trends : Studies on Innovation Matters Related to the Implementation of the Community "Innovation and SMEs Programme" , 2004 .

[46]  N. Luhmann,et al.  Trust: Making and Breaking Cooperative Relations , 1990 .

[47]  B. Kogut,et al.  Knowledge of the Firm, Combinative Capabilities, and the Replication of Technology , 1992 .

[48]  I. Nonaka,et al.  Organizational knowledge creation theory: A first comprehensive test , 1994 .

[49]  Tim Morris,et al.  Knowledge Creation in Professional Service Firms , 1999 .

[50]  Y. Baba,et al.  Systemic innovation and cross-border networks : transcending markets and hierarchies to create a new techno-economic system , 1989 .

[51]  R. Gulati.  Alliances and networks , 1998 .

[52]  Daniel A. Levinthal,et al.  ABSORPTIVE CAPACITY: A NEW PERSPECTIVE ON LEARNING AND INNOVATION , 1990 .

[53]  David Gago,et al.  Regional concentration of innovative business services: testing some explanatory factors at European regional level , 2003 .

[54]  P. Hill.  Tangibles, intangibles and services: a new taxonomy for the classification of output , 1999 .

[55]  Ove Granstrand,et al.  The economics and management of intellectual property : towards intellectual capitalism , 1999 .

[56]  R. Coase.  The Nature of the Firm , 1937 .

[57]  J. Potts,et al.  Toward an Evolutionary Theory of Innovation and Growth in the Service Economy , 2007 .

[58]  Morten T. Hansen,et al.  How to build collaborative advantage , 2004 .

[59]  Ian Miles,et al.  THE INCIDENCE AND EFFECTS OF INNOVATION IN SERVICES: EVIDENCE FROM GERMANY , 2000 .

[60]  Steven B. Andrews,et al.  Structural Holes: The Social Structure of Competition , 1995, The SAGE Encyclopedia of Research Design.

[61]  Caneel K. Joyce,et al.  Innovation in Services: Corporate Culture and Investment Banking , 2007 .

[62]  W. Mitchell,et al.  Learning from competing partners: outcomes and durations of scale and link alliances in Europe, North America and Asia , 2000 .

[63]  Jacob Schmookler,et al.  Invention and Economic Growth , 1967 .

[64]  Enrico Santarelli,et al.  Gibrat's Law: Are the Services Different? , 2004 .

[65]  Julian Lowe,et al.  Protecting Strategic Knowledge: Insights from Collaborative Agreements in the Aerospace Sector , 2004, Technol. Anal. Strateg. Manag..

[66]  Jacob Schmookler,et al.  Invention and Economic Growth , 1967 .

[67]  J. Coleman,et al.  Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital , 1988, American Journal of Sociology.

[68]  Mark S. Granovetter.  Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness , 1985, American Journal of Sociology.

[69]  James G. Combs,et al.  Explaining interfirm cooperation and performance: toward a reconciliation of predictions from the resource-based view and organizational economics , 1999 .

[70]  Harbir Singh,et al.  Learning and protection of proprietary assets in strategic alliances: building relational capital , 2000 .

[71]  A. Parasuraman,et al.  Communication and Control Processes in the Delivery of Service Quality , 1988, Journal of Marketing.

[72]  R. Gulati,et al.  Where Do Interorganizational Networks Come From?1 , 1999, American Journal of Sociology.

[73]  K. Arrow.  The limits of organization , 1974 .

[74]  O. Williamson,et al.  Markets and Hierarchies: Analysis and Antitrust Implications. , 1977 .

[75]  Bruce Tether,et al.  Knowledge Intensive, Technical and Other Services: Patterns of Competitiveness and Innovation Compared , 2002, Technol. Anal. Strateg. Manag..

[76]  Fr¬¥ed¬¥erique Sachwald,et al.  Co-operative R&D: why and with whom?: An integrated framework of analysis , 2003 .

[77]  I. Miles,et al.  Service production and intellectual property , 2000, Int. J. Serv. Technol. Manag..