Abstract
This paper examines interdependencies between firms’ activities in the realms of open science and commercial product development. We present a theoretical framework that outlines when a firm’s involvement in academic communities enhances its innovative performance in terms of new products in development. We argue that the disclosure of more, valuable R&D work in quality scholarly publications and collaborations with academic partners positively affect firm innovation. We further hypothesize a differential effect of adopting open science strategies on the innovation type, being more pronounced for radical innovations than for incremental innovations. We empirically analyze a unique panel dataset containing information on the product innovation performance and R&D activities of 160 UK therapeutic biotechnology firms over the period 1998- 2009. Our results from count data models on the number of new products in development provide empirical support for our hypotheses.
Highlights
A growing number of firms in knowledge-intensive sectors participate in open science, a system of cumulative knowledge production that facilitates the disclosure of scientific discoveries through publications in academic journals (Dasgupta and David, 1994; Ding, 2011; Gittelman and Kogut, 2003; Mukherjee and Stern, 2009)
Firms adopting open science strategies are increasingly prominent in the current R&D landscape and this study offers novel insights into how such strategies support firms in product innovation
We highlight that firms that produce better science enjoy benefits in new product development
Summary
A growing number of firms in knowledge-intensive sectors participate in open science, a system of cumulative knowledge production that facilitates the disclosure of scientific discoveries through publications in academic journals (Dasgupta and David, 1994; Ding, 2011; Gittelman and Kogut, 2003; Mukherjee and Stern, 2009). Whereas in 1975 none of the 25 most-cited articles in Science were (co-) authored by researchers affiliated with firms, in 2009 there were 6.1 Comparative research on the extent to which products and processes build on academic science across different sectors highlights that this development has been potent in the life sciences sector (Mansfield, 1995, 1998). A single biotechnology firm, Genentech published 5038 articles in scientific journals over the period 1976–2008, of which 249 in Science or Nature..
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