Formal and informal appropriation mechanisms: the role of openness and innovativeness

Ann-Kristin Zobel (), Boris Lokshin and John Hagedoorn ()
Additional contact information
Ann-Kristin Zobel: Dept. of Management, Technology and Economics, ETH Zürich
John Hagedoorn: UNU-MERIT, and Royal Holloway University of London

No 2016-059, MERIT Working Papers from United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT)

Abstract: This paper analyses how firms' degree of openness and innovativeness influence their use of formal and informal appropriation mechanisms. Patents, trademarks, copyrights, and design rights are formal appropriation mechanisms. Secrecy, lead-time, and complexity are examples of informal appropriation mechanisms. Both external search breadth and depth are positively associated with firms' use of informal appropriation mechanisms, while only external search breadth is positively associated with formal appropriation mechanisms. Firms' degree of radical (incremental) innovation orientation is negatively (positively) associated with their use of formal appropriation mechanisms. Analysis of the joint impact of openness and innovativeness, suggests that for radical innovators it is external search breadth (rather than depth) that has a positive association with the use of informal appropriation mechanisms. In contrast, for radical innovators external search depth (rather than breadth) is associated with the use of formal appropriation mechanisms. For incremental innovators, external search breadth (rather than depth) is associated with the use of both formal and informal appropriation mechanisms.

Keywords: Appropriation Mechanisms; Formal Appropriation; Informal Appropriation; External Search Openness; Incremental Innovators; Radical Innovators (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: K11 O31 O32 O34 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-10-26
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ino, nep-ipr and nep-tid
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://unu-merit.nl/publications/wppdf/2016/wp2016-059.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Formal and informal appropriation mechanisms: The role of openness and innovativeness (2017)
Working Paper: Formal and informal appropriation mechanisms: the role of openness and innovativeness (2016)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:unm:unumer:2016059

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MERIT Working Papers from United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Ad Notten ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).