Chapter 8 Technology commercialization: Cooperative versus competitive strategies

This chapter presents a framework for evaluating commercialization strategies available to start-up innovators operating in high-technology industries. The chapter uses a stream of research relating to three major considerations for commercialization strategies: intellectual property rights’ strength; requisite complementary assets; and licensing/alliance transaction costs. The authors describe the options available to the innovator and explain how the attractiveness of alliances increases with the strength of the innovator's IPR position and the cost of acquiring complementary assets. The four distinct commercialization environments defined by these factors then are related to the likelihood an innovator will commercialize an invention through cooperation or competition. The chapter then applies the framework to five case studies of start-up innovators in a major research university's business incubator.