Learning from licensing agreements: the perspective of licensees in rapidly developing countries (R-3883)

Although the extant literature has provided great insights on open innovation, there are major white spaces to be explored. Researchers have not paid much attention to the question how the use of licensing agreements can lead to improved innovation performance of technologically lagging companies in rapidly emerging countries such as China, India, South-Korea, Brazil and others. Licensing agreements got attention in the literature from the perspective from the licensor, not from the perspective from the licensee: research emphasized how to monetize on existing technology for the licensor, not how licensees can learn from the in-licensed technology. This PhD-research will focus on the learning perspective of the licensees and will fill this research gap. The main research question can be formulated as follows: How licensing agreements can be an interesting external source of technological knowledge and how licensees in rapidly developing countries can absorb knowledge embedded in the licensing agreements and develop their own technological competencies? Absence of reliable databases about licensing agreements is probably the most important reason why licensing has not been analyzed to the same extent as alliances, M&As, etc. However, the Chinese government (SIPO) has been recording the licensing agreements from 2000 and it is possible to get access to it through the Zhejiang University (it is not a publicly available database). We will examine the relationship between the licensing agreements Chinese companies and their subsequent technology performance using in a database with a panel data structure. Econometric techniques used are negative binomial, probit regression models, and event history analysis.

Keywords:LICENSING AGREEMENTS, OPEN INNOVATION

Disciplines:Management, Marketing