Learning to license technology: the role of experience and workforce's skills in Spanish manufacturing firms

Abstract

Firms increasingly pursue technology licensing for appropriating economic returns from their R&D investments. Despite this tendency, extracting revenues from licensing remains a challenge for most firms. This article explores the role of task‐specific experience and of workforce skills as determinants of superior licensing volume. The rationale is that these factors contribute to the development of a desorptive capacity that allows companies to overcome the complexities posed by technology licensing. Using panel data of Spanish manufacturing firms, we find that prior experience in licensing positively affects licensing revenues at a decreasing rate. These learning‐by‐doing effects are strengthened when firms have a higher proportion of their workforce endowed with advanced skills, whereas they are reduced when firms have a higher proportion of low‐skilled employees. These results contribute to licensing and open innovation research by partly specifying the nature and anatomy of desorptive capacity and by highlighting the key role of intellectual human capital in licensing, whose contribution depends on the skills level. They also inform managers on the mechanisms that can enhance their firms’ licensing volume.