| Abstrakt: |
Current theories of how firms profit from innovation cannot convincingly explain the selective, voluntary, and open disclosure of patentable inventions by giving up exclusivity rights by IBM in the second-half of the 20th century. We conceive of selective disclosure of innovations by IBM as an organizational response to institutional pressures rather than the result of a proactive innovation management strategy by IBM or opportunistic behavior by its employees. Using novel data on patents citing IBM inventions during 1976-1998, we find that patents citing IBM disclosures are similar, if not better, in quality compared to patents that do not, challenging the view that IBM strategically disclosed less valuable knowledge. IBM inventors with disclosures were less likely to leave IBM and they reabsorbed more knowledge from follow-on innovations than those who left, undermining explanations for selective disclosure rooted in employee opportunism. We find that IBM benefited by learning from what others had learned from its disclosures, highlighting the tradeoffs firms face in knowledge protection and disclosure. Our results remain robust to potential heterogeneity in searching for and citing disclosures in patents. We discuss the implications of our findings for knowledge retrieval, incentives for innovation, and industry evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
