Abstract: As crowdsourced digital goods become more freely available and more frequently used as key inputs by firms, understanding the impact they have on productivity becomes of critical importance. In this paper, I measure the impact of one such good, open source software (OSS), on firm productivity. I find a positive and significant return to the usage of OSS. I address the endogeneity issues inherent in productivity studies by using panel data with an instrumental variable approach. Further, I use a matching methodology to provide additional support for my primary finding. My findings fill an important gap in the existing literature on the returns to IT investment, which does not properly account for non-pecuniary digital inputs.

Abstract: Innovation requires both the invention of new technologies and the commercialization of those technologies across diverse commercial applications. Increasingly, established firms are opening up to link their technological inventions to commercial applications through the market of technology. We take an inventing-firm perspective and ask: how many commercial applications will an established -firm associate with a given technological invention? Proprietary data from an online marketplace allows us to investigate both technological characteristics and organizational attributes that affect the technology-application associations. We find that, in general, firms assign more applications to technologies that are more important and have a broad impact on other technological fields. However, these relationships do not always hold as firms face challenges de-linking their technologies from existing applications and the existing organizational routines.

Abstract: This paper investigates how engaging in open innovation can foster improvements in firm product innovation efficiency, using a sample of 846 high and medium-tech Spanish firms over the period 2006-2011. Building on research in the area of innovation management and technology strategy, we propose a negative moderation effect of firm size and firm IPR protection on the examined relationship. A two-stage analysis is used to test the hypotheses. In the first stage, dynamic innovation efficiency is estimated based the use of frontier methodological approach of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and more specifically the bootstrapped Malmquist index. In the second stage, panel data models are estimated to test the moderating effect of firm size and appropriabiliity strategy. Our findings provide empirical support to our theoretical predictions.

Abstract: As firms are increasingly aware that innovation may not be confined within their organisations, they seek to sharpen their competitive edge by appropriating external knowledge to enhance the value of their existing knowledge stock. The role of public research institutes (PRIs) is gaining importance as external knowledge centres from which firms could acquire technologies to introduce innovative products and processes for better market performance. However, there is a paucity of empirical research on firms participating in open innovation with PRIs, as extant studies tend to focus on firms acquiring technologies from other firms. As PRIs have their distinct roles and propensity to out-license indigenous technologies as part of their national innovation system, this study contributes to the body of knowledge by examining the determinants affecting firms’ propensity to take part in open innovation with PRIs.