How formal and informal intellectual property protection matters for firms' decision to engage in coopetition: The role of environmental dynamism and competition intensity

Nina Telg; Boris Lokshin; Wilko Letterie

doi:10.1016/j.technovation.2023.102751

How formal and informal intellectual property protection matters for firms' decision to engage in coopetition: The role of environmental dynamism and competition intensity

Nina Telg^*, Boris Lokshin, Wilko Letterie

^*Corresponding author for this work

Management and Organisation

Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

Abstract

Firms engage in coopetition by collaborating with their direct competitors. We examine how reliance on protection mechanisms to safeguard intellectual property (IP) affects a firm's decision to engage in coopetition. In addition, we study how industry dynamism and competitive intensity moderate this relationship. Using a generalized structural equation model (GSEM), we find that firms are more likely to collaborate with rivals when their IP is protected. Firms employing formal protection mechanisms are more likely to engage in coopetition if they operate in a dynamic industry and they are less prone to engage in coopetition when using informal protection mechanisms in dynamic and competitive industries. We conjecture that this latter finding signals that firms employing informal mechanisms in such environments are more likely to prevent knowledge spillovers to a competitor by avoiding them as partnership candidates.

Original language	English
Article number	102751
Pages (from-to)	1-14
Number of pages	14
Journal	Technovation
Volume	124
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.technovation.2023.102751
Publication status	Published - Jun 2023

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This paper was written while Nina Telg (Karthaus) was doing her PhD at the School of Business and Economics, Maastricht University. The financial support of the Graduate School is gratefully acknowledged. The previous versions benefited from helpful comments by two anonymous referees and the Area Editor. We also acknowledge feedback received from participants of the 2018 Competition and Innovation summer school in Montenegro, the 2019 ZEW/MaCCI conference on the Economics of Innovation and Patenting in Mannheim, the 2019 R&D Management Conference in Paris, the 2019 EURAM Conference in Lisbon, the 2019 EARIE Conference in Barcelona, and the seminars in Bergen (NHH) and Maastricht. We thank Jan Boone for his valuable insights into the profit elasticity measure. The empirical analyses were performed using remote access facility of Statistics Netherlands. The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of Statistics Netherlands.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Authors

Keywords

Competition intensity
Coopetition
Environmental dynamism
Formal IP protection
Informal IP protection

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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10.1016/j.technovation.2023.102751

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abstract = "Firms engage in coopetition by collaborating with their direct competitors. We examine how reliance on protection mechanisms to safeguard intellectual property (IP) affects a firm's decision to engage in coopetition. In addition, we study how industry dynamism and competitive intensity moderate this relationship. Using a generalized structural equation model (GSEM), we find that firms are more likely to collaborate with rivals when their IP is protected. Firms employing formal protection mechanisms are more likely to engage in coopetition if they operate in a dynamic industry and they are less prone to engage in coopetition when using informal protection mechanisms in dynamic and competitive industries. We conjecture that this latter finding signals that firms employing informal mechanisms in such environments are more likely to prevent knowledge spillovers to a competitor by avoiding them as partnership candidates.",

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How formal and informal intellectual property protection matters for firms' decision to engage in coopetition: The role of environmental dynamism and competition intensity

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

UN SDGs

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