Thomas Maximilian Klueter

Publications

• This study investigates a recent phenomenon in the market for technology: online marketplaces for technological inventions, which support the listing, search, and exchange of technological inventions by sellers and buyers. Focusing on three salient theoretical factors that affect markets for technology--search costs, ambiguity about the underlying knowledge and its applications, and expropriation concerns--our research systematically explores which industries are served by online marketplaces. We exploit the fact that the magnitude of these factors varies across industries and identify key features of online marketplaces that may address these factors. Our proprietary dataset covers 12 online marketplaces for technology and spans over 140 industries. The results indicate that online marketplaces are more likely to serve an industry with (a) a higher cost of searching for technologies in that industry, (b) greater ambiguity about the underlying technology's potential applications across industries, and (c) greater ability to protect inventions from expropriation.

• As much as prior research has shed light on the boundary-spanning processes of global organizations and their (positive) impact on an MNC's performance, whether, when and how past performance ultimately shapes an MNC's boundary-spanning activities remains an open question in management research. To tackle these questions, we examine the behavior of technology scouts in global organizations who span organizational and national boundaries to tap into novel knowledge and span internal boundaries to present this knowledge to constituents inside the MNC. Drawing on the behavioral theory of the firm, we propose that the intensity of organizational boundary spanning, the likelihood of spanning national boundaries and the way technology scouts span internal boundaries to engage with members inside the organization are sensitive to how the MNC has performed relative to its aspirations. We support our theoretical expositions with insights gained from interviewing senior industry professionals with direct experience in technology scouting in MNCs.

• This paper examines the relationship between the licensing of knowledge and the creation of product innovations. We consider that firms organize licensing activities in different ways and that licensees are heterogeneous with respect to the attention available to apply and transform in-licensed knowledge to create new product innovations. We suggest that standard licensing, which typically entails a simple exchange of knowledge for money, is less likely to lead to a product innovation than licensing embedded in a broader partnership. However, we also reveal that standard licensing can lead to an innovation outcome similar to that of partnership-embedded licensing once we take into account the levels of attention of both the R&D unit receiving the licensed knowledge (bottom-up attention) and the licensee organization's top-level managers (top-down attention). Examination of 555 bio-pharmaceutical-industry licensing agreements from 1997 to 2015 yielded support for our theoretical framework. The paper showcases the value of connecting the literatures on licensing and attention to develop a more comprehensive understanding of how licensing affects innovation.

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