This paper examines the role of venture capital on a firm's innovation activities by using a data set of German technology-based firms founded between 1996 and 2005. Innovation is proxied by patent counts and an index of innovativeness which reflects the degree to which a young firm has...

Nachdem die Anzahl der Unternehmensgründungen insgesamt in den vergangenen Jahren zurückgegangen war, zeigte sich seit 2002 wieder eine Erholung. Die Anzahl der wissens- und technologieintensiven Gründungen folgte 2003 erstmals der allgemeinen Erholungstendenz. Die Anzahl wissensintensiver...

We present evidence on venture capitalists' (VCs) impact on turnover of executives for a sample of nearly 47,000 German high-tech start-ups between 1995 and 2004. We confirm that the presence of VCs increases the probability of a change in the initial executive team. Additionally, we take a...

Viele unternehmerische Entscheidungen werden durch konjunkturelle Schwankungen beeinflusst. Gerade Innovationsentscheidungen können oft kurzfristigen Anpassungsprozessen unterliegen. Das Thema ist aktuell wieder von besonderem Interesse, da sich einerseits ein erneuter konjunktureller Abschwung...

This article explores the propensity to patent in the light of the disclosure effect. Unlike earlier approaches concerned with the patenting decision, we take into account that a disclosure effect may decrease the merits of patenting by facilitating inventing around the patent for competitors....

Innovators seek to protect their intellectual assets by patenting them, at the same time trying to avoid any disclosure of critical knowledge. Given that a patent specification has to include a clear description of the patented matter so that anybody skilled in the art is enabled to reproduce...

This paper presents a theoretical and empirical investigation of the two basic effects of patenting: the positive effect of temporarily mitigating competition, and the negative effect of mandatory disclosure of a patent application. Providing empirical evidence for the presented theoretical...

This paper presents a theoretical model on firms' patenting decision in vertically differentiated markets. The model's prediction regarding patenting and rival's market entry decision are then tested empirically. We find that in industries which are characterized by easy-to-use knowledge...

The sensitivity of innovation activities with respect to the business cycle is often assumed to be small. In this paper the hypothesis on cyclical dependence of innovation activities is tested for firms in the German manufacturing, and additionally for SMEs. To this end firms? innovation...