Combining valuable inventions: exploring the impact of prior invention value on the performance of subsequent inventions

Jan Hohberger

Industrial and Corporate Change, 2017, vol. 26, issue 5, 907-930

Abstract: Innovation research widely acknowledges that most inventions are recombinations of existing ideas and technologies. Following this stream of research, this study analyses how the values of prior inventions used to develop a subsequent invention influence the value of the new invention. Building on evolutionary theory and research on technological search and technological paradigms, this article proposes a positive relationship between prior inventions’ value and subsequent invention value. The analysis of a large-scale patent data set of pharmaceutical and semiconductor firms largely confirms this notion; however, it also shows that the effect weakens when prior inventions are of “higher” value. Valuable prior inventions are also positively related to the likelihood that subsequent inventions are “breakthroughs”; however, while this effect also decreases when prior inventions hold higher values, the decreasing effect occurs only at particularly high levels of prior invention value. In contrast, combining valuable inventions limits the likelihood of generating poor invention outcomes value. In summary, while the results lend support to theories of evolutionary and cumulative technological progress, they also show that despite the recombination potential of technical knowledge, there are practical limits to the benefits of valuable inputs.

JEL-codes: O30 O31 O32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/icc/dtw056 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:oup:indcch:v:26:y:2017:i:5:p:907-930.

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Industrial and Corporate Change is currently edited by Josef Chytry

More articles in Industrial and Corporate Change from Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().