IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/hal-00476876.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Opportunity knocks

Author

Listed:
  • Thomas Astebro

    (Joseph L. Rotman School of Management - University of Toronto)

  • Kristina Dahlin

    (Joseph L. Rotman School of Management - University of Toronto)

Abstract

Research on technological opportunity has typically focused on the impact of broad industry characteristics on R&D intensity of firms. This study complements such approaches by examining the impact of a multidimensional vector that measures technological opportunity on independent inventors' decisions to patent and commercialize inventions. Using data from 559 inventions and controlling for demand, appropriability, and competitive conditions, we found two of four tested dimensions of technological opportunity - technical performance and technical uncertainty - to be significant and important determinants of the likelihood of commercialization. Technical feasibility appears important in affecting patenting but unimportant in affecting commercialization. Technical significance carries a negative, although insignificant, sign conditioning commercialization.

Suggested Citation

  • Thomas Astebro & Kristina Dahlin, 2005. "Opportunity knocks," Post-Print hal-00476876, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-00476876
    DOI: 10.1016/j.respol.2005.06.003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thomas B. Astebro & Yigal Gerchak, 2000. "Calculating the Expectation and Variance of the Present Value for a Random Profit Stream of Uncertain Duration," Post-Print hal-00648005, HAL.
    2. Manuel Trajtenberg, 1990. "A Penny for Your Quotes: Patent Citations and the Value of Innovations," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 21(1), pages 172-187, Spring.
    3. Klevorick, Alvin K. & Levin, Richard C. & Nelson, Richard R. & Winter, Sidney G., 1995. "On the sources and significance of interindustry differences in technological opportunities," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 185-205, March.
    4. Eric von Hippel & Ralph Katz, 2002. "Shifting Innovation to Users via Toolkits," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 48(7), pages 821-833, July.
    5. Thomas Astebro & Irwin Bernhardt, 1999. "The Social Rate of Return to Canada's Inventor's Assistance Program," Post-Print hal-00480038, HAL.
    6. Scott Shane, 2001. "Technology Regimes and New Firm Formation," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 47(9), pages 1173-1190, September.
    7. Bruno Crepon & Emmanuel Duguet & Jacques Mairesse, 1998. "Research, Innovation And Productivity: An Econometric Analysis At The Firm Level," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 7(2), pages 115-158.
    8. Von Hippel, Eric A. & Katz, Ralph, 2002. "Shifting Innovation to Users Via Toolkits," Working papers 4232-02, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sloan School of Management.
    9. King, Gary & Zeng, Langche, 2001. "Logistic Regression in Rare Events Data," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 9(2), pages 137-163, January.
    10. Richard R. Nelson, 1959. "The Economics of Invention: A Survey of the Literature," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 32, pages 101-101.
    11. Will Mitchell, 1991. "Dual clocks: Entry order influences on incumbent and newcomer market share and survival when specialized assets retain their value," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 12(2), pages 85-100, February.
    12. Thomas Åstebro & Yigal Gerchak, 2001. "Profitable Advice: the Value of Information Provided by Canada's Inventor's Assistance Program," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(1), pages 45-72.
    13. Cohen, Wesley M & Levinthal, Daniel A, 1989. "Innovation and Learning: The Two Faces of R&D," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 99(397), pages 569-596, September.
    14. Scott Shane, 2001. "Technological Opportunities and New Firm Creation," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 47(2), pages 205-220, February.
    15. Dahlin, Kristina & Taylor, Margaret & Fichman, Mark, 2004. "Today's Edisons or weekend hobbyists: technical merit and success of inventions by independent inventors," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(8), pages 1167-1183, October.
    16. Wesley M. Cohen & Richard C. Levin & David C. Mowery, 1987. "Firm Size and R&D Intensity: A Re-Examination," NBER Working Papers 2205, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Jacob Goldenberg & Donald R. Lehmann & David Mazursky, 2001. "The Idea Itself and the Circumstances of Its Emergence as Predictors of New Product Success," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 47(1), pages 69-84, January.
    18. Crepon, B. & Duguet, E. & Mairesse, J., 1998. "Research Investment, Innovation and Productivity: An Econometric Analysis at the Firm Level," Papiers d'Economie Mathématique et Applications 98.15, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1).
    19. Joshua Gans & Scott Stern, 2003. "When does funding research by smaller firms bear fruit?: Evidence from the SBIR program," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(4), pages 361-384.
    20. Thomas Ã…stebro, 1998. "Basic Statistics on the Success Rate and Profits for Independent Inventors," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 23(2), pages 41-48, December.
    21. Wesley M. Cohen & Richard R. Nelson & John P. Walsh, 2000. "Protecting Their Intellectual Assets: Appropriability Conditions and Why U.S. Manufacturing Firms Patent (or Not)," NBER Working Papers 7552, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    22. Labay, Duncan G & Kinnear, Thomas C, 1981. "Exploring the Consumer Decision Process in the Adoption of Solar Energy Systems," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 8(3), pages 271-278, December.
    23. Ostlund, Lyman E, 1974. "Perceived Innovation Attributes as Predictors of Innovativeness," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 1(2), pages 23-29, Se.
    24. Amesse, Fernand & Desranleau, Claude & Etemad, Hamid & Fortier, Yves & Seguin-Dulude, Louise, 1991. "The individual inventor and the role of entrepreneurship : A survey of the Canadian evidence," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 13-27, February.
    25. Cohen, Wesley M & Levin, Richard C & Mowery, David C, 1987. "Firm Size and R&D Intensity: A Re-examination," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(4), pages 543-565, June.
    26. Schmookler, Jacob, 1962. "Economic Sources of Inventive Activity," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 22(1), pages 1-20, March.
    27. repec:crs:wpaper:9833 is not listed on IDEAS
    28. Steven Klepper & Kenneth L. Simons, 2000. "Dominance by birthright: entry of prior radio producers and competitive ramifications in the U.S. television receiver industry," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(10‐11), pages 997-1016, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Maria Isabella Leone & Raffaele Oriani & Toke Reichstein, 2015. "How much are flexibility and uncertainty worth in patent licensing?," Economia e Politica Industriale: Journal of Industrial and Business Economics, Springer;Associazione Amici di Economia e Politica Industriale, vol. 42(4), pages 371-394, December.
    2. Song, Kisik & Kim, Karp Soo & Lee, Sungjoo, 2017. "Discovering new technology opportunities based on patents: Text-mining and F-term analysis," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 60, pages 1-14.
    3. Iritié, Jean-Jacques B-G., 2012. "Effets des pôles de compétitivité dans les industries de haute technologie : une analyse d'économie industrielle de l'innovation [Effects of competitiveness clusters in high technology industries: ," MPRA Paper 46686, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Peters, Michael & Schneider, Malte & Griesshaber, Tobias & Hoffmann, Volker H., 2012. "The impact of technology-push and demand-pull policies on technical change – Does the locus of policies matter?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(8), pages 1296-1308.
    5. Lettl, Christopher & Rost, Katja & von Wartburg, Iwan, 2009. "Why are some independent inventors 'heroes' and others 'hobbyists'? The moderating role of technological diversity and specialization," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 243-254, March.
    6. Dahlin, Kristina B. & Behrens, Dean M., 2005. "When is an invention really radical?: Defining and measuring technological radicalness," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(5), pages 717-737, June.
    7. De Mot, Jef & Depoorter, Ben, 2011. "Technology and torts: Memory costs, nondurable precautions and interference effects," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 284-290.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Cohen, Wesley M., 2010. "Fifty Years of Empirical Studies of Innovative Activity and Performance," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, in: Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 129-213, Elsevier.
    2. Barge-Gil, Andrés & López, Alberto, 2014. "R&D determinants: Accounting for the differences between research and development," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(9), pages 1634-1648.
    3. Choi, Mincheol & Lee, Chang-Yang, 2021. "Technological diversification and R&D productivity: The moderating effects of knowledge spillovers and core-technology competence," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    4. Christian Rammer & Dirk Czarnitzki & Alfred Spielkamp, 2009. "Innovation success of non-R&D-performers: substituting technology by management in SMEs," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 33(1), pages 35-58, June.
    5. Amin,Mohammad, 2021. "Does Competition from Informal Firms Impact R&D by Formal SMEs ? Evidence Using Firm-Level Survey Data," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9868, The World Bank.
    6. Wang, Ming-Yeu & Fang, Shih-Chieh & Chang, Yu-Hsuan, 2015. "Exploring technological opportunities by mining the gaps between science and technology: Microalgal biofuels," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 182-195.
    7. José García-Quevedo & Gabriele Pellegrino & Marco Vivarelli, 2011. "The determinants of YICs’ R&D activity," Working Papers 2011/31, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    8. García-Quevedo, José & Pellegrino, Gabriele & Vivarelli, Marco, 2011. "R&D Drivers in Young Innovative Companies," IZA Discussion Papers 6136, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Di Cintio, Marco & Ghosh, Sucharita & Grassi, Emanuele, 2017. "Firm growth, R&D expenditures and exports: An empirical analysis of italian SMEs," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(4), pages 836-852.
    10. Dahlin, Kristina & Taylor, Margaret & Fichman, Mark, 2004. "Today's Edisons or weekend hobbyists: technical merit and success of inventions by independent inventors," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(8), pages 1167-1183, October.
    11. García-Quevedo, José & Pellegrino, Gabriele & Vivarelli, Marco, 2014. "R&D drivers and age: Are young firms different?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(9), pages 1544-1556.
    12. Wesley M. Cohen & You-Na Lee & John P. Walsh, 2019. "How Innovative Are Innovations? A Multidimensional, Survey-Based Approach," NBER Chapters, in: Measuring and Accounting for Innovation in the Twenty-First Century, pages 139-182, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. José García-Quevedo & Gabriele Pellegrino & Marco Vivarelli, 2011. "The determinants of YIc's R&D activity," Working Papers XREAP2011-20, Xarxa de Referència en Economia Aplicada (XREAP), revised Dec 2011.
    14. Andrés Barge-Gil & Alberto López, 2015. "R versus D: estimating the differentiated effect of research and development on innovation results," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 24(1), pages 93-129.
    15. Chialin Chang & Stéphane Robin, 2006. "Doing R&D and/or Importing Technologies: The Critical Importance of Firm Size in Taiwan’s Manufacturing Industries," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 29(3), pages 253-278, November.
    16. Dziallas, Marisa & Blind, Knut, 2019. "Innovation indicators throughout the innovation process: An extensive literature analysis," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 80, pages 3-29.
    17. Davis, Lee N. & Davis, Jerome & Hoisl, Karin, 2009. "What Inspires Leisure Time Invention?," Discussion Papers in Business Administration 10457, University of Munich, Munich School of Management.
    18. Xulia Gonzalez & Consuelo Pazo, 2004. "Firms' R&D dilemma: to undertake or not to undertake R&D," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(1), pages 55-59.
    19. Spyros Arvanitis & Juliette von Arx, 2004. "Bestimmungsfaktoren der Innovationstätigkeit und deren Einfluss auf Arbeitsproduktivität, Beschäftigung und Qualifikationsstruktur," KOF Working papers 04-91, KOF Swiss Economic Institute, ETH Zurich.
    20. Bastian Rake, 2017. "Determinants of pharmaceutical innovation: the role of technological opportunities revisited," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 27(4), pages 691-727, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-00476876. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.