The role of corporate technology strategy and patent portfolios in low-, medium- and high-technology firms
Article Type: Abstracts From: Strategic Direction, Volume 25, Issue 11
Lichtenthaler U. Research Policy (Netherlands), April 2009, Vol. 38 No. 3, Start page: 559, No. of pages: 11
Purpose – To apply patent data to highlight important aspects of low-technology/medium-technology (LMT) company innovation. Design/methodology/approach – A review of the literature of corporate technology strategy is presented to provide a definition of the term “technology intensity”. Reports the results of a questionnaire survey, involving data from 136 European companies in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland to address hypotheses on technological aggressiveness, technological diversification,patent portfolio size and patent portfolio quality (33.0 percent response rate). Findings – The results supported the hypotheses that technological intensity positively moderates the relationship between technological aggressiveness, technological diversification, and patent portfolio size and company performance. Reveals that the results failed to support the hypothesis that technological intensity positively moderates the relationship between patent portfolio quality and company performance. Reveals that the returns to technologically aggressive or offensive strategies are directly related to a company’s technological intensity, with medium-technology companies gaining less from aggressive strategies than high-technology ones achieve on average,and the returns for low-technology companies are lower still. Concludes that the performance of low-technology companies, as measured by their rates of return on sales, is negatively affected by both high degrees of technological diversification and the generation of a large patent portfolio that emphasizes the number of patents filed rather than their quality. Originality/value –Contributes to overcoming the limitations of prior empirical research into LMT companies. Article type: Research paper ISSN: 0048-7333 Reference: 38AQ144
Keywords: Austria, Business performance, Germany,Innovation, Organizational performance, Switzerland
