Product portfolio performance in new foreign markets: The EU trademark dual system

Alicia Barroso, Marco S. Giarratana and Martina Pasquini

Research Policy, 2019, vol. 48, issue 1, 11-21

Abstract: How do intellectual propriety rights (IPRs) help firms profit from their innovation? Innovation literature frequently turns to patents to measure innovative IPR, but more recent work shifts focus to the other side of IPR, namely, trademarks. This article therefore discusses the effects of trademark strategies when companies decide to introduce their product portfolios in a new foreign market. Entrants might opt for a common trademark across different country markets (integration) or use several country-specific trademarks (responsiveness). This empirical study exploits the quasi-natural experiment created by the tariff shock that affected Spain when it joined the European Union in the 1990s. Data from the automotive industry reveal how non-European companies that already operated in other European countries sought to enter Spain rapidly, using various trademark strategies. The product portfolio characteristics are fixed at entry, so this study can specify how and when trademark responsiveness versus integration affects firm performance. The results reveal that trademark responsiveness increases firm performance if the firms suffer high liabilities of foreignness or newness.

Keywords: European trademarks; Diversification; Foreign market penetration; Performance; Automotive industry (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733318301781
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
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:eee:respol:v:48:y:2019:i:1:p:11-21

DOI: 10.1016/j.respol.2018.07.013

Access Statistics for this article

Research Policy is currently edited by M. Bell, B. Martin, W.E. Steinmueller, A. Arora, M. Callon, M. Kenney, S. Kuhlmann, Keun Lee and F. Murray

More articles in Research Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().