"Strategy, organization and IP management in knowledge intensive service firms"

Abstract

This paper studies how knowledge intensive business service (KIBS) firms assess and chose among different appropriability mechanisms - including formal, contractual and strategic intellectual property protection methods - to capture value from innovation. Drawing on strategy and organization theories, we propose that a firm’s competitive strategy and organizational approach to knowledge co-determine (together with other innovation-, firm- and industry-level factors) the effectiveness of different value appropriability mechanisms. The results from multivariate probit regression analysis using data from an original survey and 255 service product and process innovations that were introduced by 167 British and American publicly-traded KIBS firms, confirm our basic proposition. We thus contribute to the study of the determinants of IP management and improve our understanding of managerial practices for capturing value from service innovation.