Recent studies suggest that firms may gain from global sourcing of innovative activities. Yet, only a small number of firms offshore their R&D, design, and engineering tasks. To explain this selection pattern, this paper examines the heterogeneity in total factor productivity among a large group...

(VF)Le corporate venture consiste à structurer les relations entre un grand groupe et une jeune entreprise innovante soit en acquérant tout ou partie du capital de jeunes entreprises, soit en externalisant certaines entités du groupe pour en faire des entités indépendantes. Alors que le...

We develop a theory of a firm in an incomplete contracts environment which decides on its complexity, organization, and global scale. Specifically, the firm decides i) how thinly it wants to slice its production process by choosing the mass of symmetric intermediate inputs that are...

We develop a theory of a firm in an incomplete contracts environment which decides on the complexity, the organization, and the global scale of its production process. Specifically, the firm decides i) how many intermediate inputs are simultaneously combined to a final product, ii) if the...

As digital technologies increase the occurrence of big bang disruptions across industries, companies old and new find they have less time both to profit from their own disruptor and to unleash the next one. This article describes the drivers of this phenomenon, and offers strategic responses...

The nature of disruptive innovation, first studied by Joseph Schumpeter, has changed dramatically in the wake of rapidly and predictably deflating costs for embedded digital technology. New disruptors now enter the marker both better and cheaper than existing products. The result is devastating...

Intellectual property frequently carries with it exclusive rights not only over the primary subject matter of the rights granted, but also over ancillary subject matter that is not within the definition of the primary grant, as for example in the patent doctrine of contributory infringement....

Recent scholarship has begun to assess the role of intellectual property rights in the theory of the Coasean firm. Some of this scholarship has looked at the effects of intellectual property on decisions to "make or buy" inputs to production. Other scholarship has looked at the effects of...

The paper examines the allocation of inventive effort in complex product systems. I argue that complex product systems (e.g., personal computers) are distinguished by functional interaction among several components each guided by a relatively autonomous bundle of technical and economic...