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Technological diversity, uncertainty and innovation performance

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  • Thomas Bolli
  • Florian Seliger
  • Martin Woerter

Abstract

We analyse the impact of technological diversity on innovation performance in the discovery stage, measured by R&D intensity and patent applications, and in the commercialization stage, measured by the sales share generated by innovations, using Swiss firm-level data. While we do not find any impact of diversity on R&D intensity, we confirm a positive impact of diversity on patent applications as suggested by literature. Extending the analysis to the commercialization stage reveals that technological diversity decreases the share of sales generated by innovative products. We argue that this pattern emerges because knowledge spillovers matter relatively more in the discovery stage while coordination costs matter relatively more in the commercialization stage. Technological uncertainty further increases coordination costs (in both stages) and thus negatively moderates the effect of diversity on innovation performance.

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  • Thomas Bolli & Florian Seliger & Martin Woerter, 2020. "Technological diversity, uncertainty and innovation performance," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 52(17), pages 1831-1844, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:applec:v:52:y:2020:i:17:p:1831-1844
    DOI: 10.1080/00036846.2019.1679345
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    Cited by:

    1. Mingyu Tian & Yiwei Su & Zhong Yang, 2022. "University–industry collaboration and firm innovation: an empirical study of the biopharmaceutical industry," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 47(5), pages 1488-1505, October.
    2. Marco Guerzoni & Massimiliano Nuccio & Federico Tamagni, 2022. "Discovering pre-entry knowledge complexity with patent topic modeling and the post-entry growth of Italian firms," LEM Papers Series 2022/25, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    3. Jingbei Wang & Min Guo & Hui Liu & Yafei Nie, 2023. "Partners’ partners matter: the effect of partners’ centrality diversity on the focal organization’s innovation outputs," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(3), pages 1547-1565, March.

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