Some like it free: Innovators' Strategic use of Disclosure to slow down Competition

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Pacheco-de-Almeida, Goncalo; Zemsky, Peter B.
• 署名单位: Hautes Etudes Commerciales (HEC) Paris; INSEAD Business School
• 刊物名称: STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT JOURNAL
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0143-2095
• DOI: 10.1002/smj.971
• 发表日期: 2012
• 页码: 773-793
• 关键词: R&D and technology; innovation dynamics; timing games; time compression diseconomies; firm spillovers

摘要

Why do some innovators freely reveal their intellectual property? This empirical puzzle has been a focal point of debate in the R&D literature. We show that innovators may share proprietary technology with rivals for freeeven if it does not directly benefit themto slow down competition. By disclosing IP, innovators indirectly induce rivals to wait and imitate instead of concurrently investing in innovation, which alleviates competitive pressure. In contrast with the classical strategy view, our paper also shows that imitators may not always benefit from interfirm knowledge spillovers. Specifically, imitators may want to limit the know-how that they can freely appropriate from innovators. Otherwise, innovators have fewer incentives to quickly develop new technologies, which, ultimately, reduces the pace and profits of imitation. Copyright (C) 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.