Trade secret protection and R&D investment of family firms

Katrin Hussingera and Wunnam Issahd

No 22-039, ZEW Discussion Papers from ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research

Abstract: Family firms are known for their reluctance to invest in research and development. We show that strengthened trade secret protection is associated with higher R&D investment by family firms. More specifically, we show that the association between the strength of trade secret protection through the U.S. Uniform Trade Secrets Act and R&D investment is positively moderated by family control. Our results further show that the positive moderation of family control on the association between the strength of trade secret protection and R&D investment varies with the industry context, being stronger in high tech industries and weaker in discrete product industries.

Keywords: Family firms; intellectual property protection; trade secret protection; UTSA; R&Dinvestment; socioemotional wealth (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G32 M14 O32 O34 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cfn, nep-com, nep-cse, nep-ino, nep-knm, nep-sbm and nep-tid
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:zewdip:22039

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