Is there a role for the multifaceted Renaissance Man in modern team-intensive innovation activities? This paper argues that generalist inventors, holding a broad knowledge set, make an especially valuable contribution to innovation teams in uncertain contexts. For a given level of team knowledge...

Patents are typically characterized as very valuable assets for firms. Nevertheless, there are many patents in a firm's portfolio that are actually never used. In this paper, we claim that there is a relationship between a firm's decision to use or not to use a patent and the characteristics of...