High-tech firms are built much more on the intellectual capital of key personnel than on physical assets, and firms built around the best scientists are most likely to be successful in commercializing breakthrough technologies. As a result, such firms are expected to have higher market values...

During the formative years of biotechnology, 'star' bioscientists possessed intellectual capital of extraordinary scientific and pecuniary value. In America and Japan, 35 percent of star bioscientists became involved with firms in commercialising their discoveries (a crucial determinant of...

We examine the effects of university-based star scientists on three measures of performance for California biotechnology enterprises: the number of products in development, the number of products on the market, and changes in employment. The “star†concept which Zucker, Darby, and...

America's most innovative firms (with 40%+ of U.S. patents assigned to U.S. entities during 1988-96) participate, often repeatedly, in the Commerce Department's Advanced Technology Program (ATP). Participation significantly increases firms'innovation (patenting) while receiving ATP support...

Most firms achieve perfective progress, incrementally improving commodities or productivity. But technological progress is concentrated in a few firms achieving metamorphic progress: forming or transforming industries with technological breakthroughs (e.g., biotechnology, lasers, semiconductors,...

Commercializing knowledge involves transfer from discovering scientists to those who will develop it commercially. New codes and formulae describing discoveries develop slowly-with little incentive if value is low and many competing opportunities if high. Hence new knowledge remains naturally...