John Walsh
Professor
- School of Public Policy
Overview
Dr. John P. Walsh is a Professor in the School of Public Policy. He teaches and does research on science, technology and innovation, using a sociological perspective that focuses on organizations and work to explain how research organizations respond to changes in their policy environment. Recent work includes studies of university-industry linkages in the US and Japan, the effects of research tool patents on biomedical researchers and country and industry differences in the role of patents in firm strategy. His work has been published in Science, American Sociological Review, Research Policy, Social Studies of Science, and Management Science. His work has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Kauffman Foundation, the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science, the Matsushita Foundation and the Japan Foundation, and he has done consulting for the National Academy of Sciences, the OECD, the European Commission and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
- Ph.D. Northwestern University, Sociology
- M.A. Northwestern University, Sociology
- B.A., University of Cincinnati, Sociology
Interests
- S&E Organizations, Education, Careers and Workforce
- Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy
Focuses:
- Asia (East)
- Europe
- United States
- Innovation
- Science and Technology
Courses
- PUBJ-8000: Joint GT/GSU PhD Program
- PUBP-3130: Research Methods
- PUBP-4410: Science,Tech& Pub Policy
- PUBP-6014: Organization Theory
- PUBP-6401: Sci,Tech & Public Policy
- PUBP-8101: Workshop Pub Pol Res I
- PUBP-8102: Workshop Pub Pol Res II
- PUBP-8500: Research Seminar
- PUBP-8801: Special Topics
- PUBP-8823: Special Topics
Publications
Recent Publications
Books
- Funding Model and Creativity in Science: Competitive Versus Block Funding and Status Contingency Effects
In: Research Policy [Peer Reviewed]
Date: July 2018
Journal Articles
- A Bibliometric Measure of Translational Science
In: Scientometrics [Peer Reviewed]
Date: August 2020
- Authorship Norms and Project Structures in Science
In: Science, Technology, & Human Values [Peer Reviewed]
Date: March 2017
Scientific authorship has become a contested terrain in contemporary science. Based on a survey of authors across fields, we measure the likelihood of specialist authors (sometimes called “guest” authors): people who only made specialized contributions, such as data, materials, or funding; and “nonauthor collaborators” (sometimes referred to as “ghost” authors): those who did significant work on the project but do not appear as authors, across different research contexts, including field, size of the project team, commercial orientation, impact of publication, and organization of the collaboration. We find that guest and ghost authors are common, with about one-third of publications having at least one specialist author and over half having at least one nonauthor collaborator. We see significant cross-field variations in both overall rates and types of specialist authors and nonauthor collaborators. We find there are generally fewer specialist authors among highly cited papers and more graduate student nonauthor collaborators in single location projects. The results suggest authorship practices vary across fields, and by project characteristics, complicating the use of authorship lists as a basis for evaluation (especially when comparing across fields or types of projects). We discuss implications of these findings for interpreting author lists in the context of science policy.
- Win, lose or draw? the fate of patented inventions
In: Research Policy [Peer Reviewed]
Date: September 2016
© 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.Using information from a survey of US inventors, this study explores the reasons for patent non-use and different types of non-use at the patent level, and how this varies by industry and firm characteristics. We find that 55% of triadic patents are commercialized. We also find that 17% of all triadic patents are not commercialized but are at least partially for preemption, though only 3% of all triadic patents are purely preemptive patents. We find that preemptive non-use is less common than failed patents. We then test the discriminating effects of patent effectiveness, competition, firm size and fragmentation of patent rights on the likelihood of preemptive patents. We find that greater patent effectiveness, more competition, and large firm size are associated with greater preemptive non-use relative to commercial use of patents. We conclude with the policy implications of our results.
Working Papers
- The acquisition and commercialization of invention in American manufacturing: Incidence and impact
Date: July 2016
© 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.Recent accounts suggest the development and commercialization of invention has become more "open." Greater division of labor between inventors and innovators can enhance social welfare through gains from trade and economies of specialization. Moreover, this extensive reliance upon outside sources for invention also suggests that understanding the factors that condition the extramural supply of inventions to innovators is crucial to understanding the determinants of the rate and direction of innovative activity. This paper reports on a recent survey of over 5000 American manufacturing sector firms on the extent to which innovators rely upon external sources of invention. Our results indicate that, between 2007 and 2009, 16% of manufacturing firms had innovated-meaning had introduced a product that was new to the industry. Of these, 49% report that their most important new product had originated from an outside source, notably customers, suppliers and technology specialists (i.e., universities, independent inventors and R&D contractors). We also compare the contribution of each source to innovation in the US economy. Although customers are the most common outside source, inventions acquired from technology specialists tend to be the more economically significant in term of their gross commercial value. As a group, external sources of invention make a significant contribution to the overall rate of innovation in the economy. Innovation policies, both public and private, should pay careful attention to the external supply of invention, and the efficiency of the mechanisms affecting the relationships between inventors and innovators.
All Publications
Books
- Funding Model and Creativity in Science: Competitive Versus Block Funding and Status Contingency Effects
In: Research Policy [Peer Reviewed]
Date: July 2018
- Supermarkets Transformed Understanding Organizational and Technological Innovations
Date: 1993
- Mapping Crime in Its Community Setting
Date: 1991
Journal Articles
- A Bibliometric Measure of Translational Science
In: Scientometrics [Peer Reviewed]
Date: August 2020
- Authorship Norms and Project Structures in Science
In: Science, Technology, & Human Values [Peer Reviewed]
Date: March 2017
Scientific authorship has become a contested terrain in contemporary science. Based on a survey of authors across fields, we measure the likelihood of specialist authors (sometimes called “guest” authors): people who only made specialized contributions, such as data, materials, or funding; and “nonauthor collaborators” (sometimes referred to as “ghost” authors): those who did significant work on the project but do not appear as authors, across different research contexts, including field, size of the project team, commercial orientation, impact of publication, and organization of the collaboration. We find that guest and ghost authors are common, with about one-third of publications having at least one specialist author and over half having at least one nonauthor collaborator. We see significant cross-field variations in both overall rates and types of specialist authors and nonauthor collaborators. We find there are generally fewer specialist authors among highly cited papers and more graduate student nonauthor collaborators in single location projects. The results suggest authorship practices vary across fields, and by project characteristics, complicating the use of authorship lists as a basis for evaluation (especially when comparing across fields or types of projects). We discuss implications of these findings for interpreting author lists in the context of science policy.
- Win, lose or draw? the fate of patented inventions
In: Research Policy [Peer Reviewed]
Date: September 2016
© 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.Using information from a survey of US inventors, this study explores the reasons for patent non-use and different types of non-use at the patent level, and how this varies by industry and firm characteristics. We find that 55% of triadic patents are commercialized. We also find that 17% of all triadic patents are not commercialized but are at least partially for preemption, though only 3% of all triadic patents are purely preemptive patents. We find that preemptive non-use is less common than failed patents. We then test the discriminating effects of patent effectiveness, competition, firm size and fragmentation of patent rights on the likelihood of preemptive patents. We find that greater patent effectiveness, more competition, and large firm size are associated with greater preemptive non-use relative to commercial use of patents. We conclude with the policy implications of our results. - Inventing while you work: Knowledge, non-R&D learning and innovation
In: Research Policy [Peer Reviewed]
Date: February 2016
© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved."Intuition, judgment, creativity are basically expressions of capabilities for recognition and response based upon experience and knowledge (p. 128-129)" (Simon, 1997). Workers gain experience and knowledge in the course of their normal jobs. Therefore, innovative ideas can be generated from knowledge built from learning opportunities across the firm (not just the R&D lab). Employees working for different functions (R&D and outside of R&D) in an organization have different work practices and build their learning through different processes. Moreover, the relative effectiveness of learning by different work practices for innovation is contingent on the nature of knowledge, characterized by generality (i.e., high mobility/transferability) and visibility (i.e., tighter links between actions and outcomes). Using multiple datasets combining public and private data and focusing on births of innovations, this study shows how the nature of knowledge affects differences in the innovation productivity of R&D and non-R&D work. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of these insights for innovation management and policy. - The acquisition and commercialization of invention in American manufacturing: Incidence and impact
In: Research Policy [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 2016
Recent accounts suggest the development and commercialization of invention has become more “open.” Greater division of labor between inventors and innovators can enhance social welfare through gains from trade and economies of specialization. Moreover, this extensive reliance upon outside sources for invention also suggests that understanding the factors that condition the extramural supply of inventions to innovators is crucial to understanding the determinants of the rate and direction of innovative activity.
- Contribution of postdoctoral fellows to fast-moving and competitive scientific research
In: Journal of Technology Transfer [Peer Reviewed]
Date: August 2015
© 2014, Springer Science+Business Media New York.This study explores the prevalence of postdoctoral fellows in fast-moving and competitive scientific research. We use the results of a new and original large-scale survey of scientists in Japan and the United States for the analyses. Descriptive statistics show that, in both Japan and the United States: (1) the mean citation time lag was shorter by about 2 years in the highly cited papers (top 1 %) compared to other normal papers; and (2) the perceived degree of competitive threat was also higher for the projects producing the highly cited papers compared to those for normal papers. We also found that the likelihood of participation of postdoctoral fellows is significantly higher in research with shorter mean time lag and higher competitive threat (while that of students is not), controlling for author size, suggesting that postdoctoral fellows are especially prevalent in research efforts in fast-moving and competitive scientific research. - Creativity in scientific teams: Unpacking novelty and impact
In: Research Policy [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 2015
© 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.The increasing dominance of team science highlights the importance of understanding the effects of team composition on the creativity of research results. In this paper, we analyze the effect of team size, and field and task variety on creativity. Furthermore, we unpack two facets of creativity in science: novelty and impact. We find that increasing team size has an inverted-U shaped relation with novelty. We also find that the size-novelty relationship is largely due to the relation between size and team field or task variety, consistent with the information processing perspective. On the other hand, team size has a continually increasing relation with the likelihood of a high-impact paper. Furthermore, variety does not have a direct effect on impact, net of novelty. This study develops our understanding of team science and highlights the need for a governance approach to scientific work. We also advance the creativity literature by providing an ex ante objective bibliometric measure that distinguishes novelty from impact, and illustrate the distinct team-level drivers of each. We conclude with a discussion of the policy implications of our findings. - Organizational design of University laboratories: Task allocation and lab performance in Japanese bioscience laboratories
In: Research Policy [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 2015
© 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.A university laboratory is a fundamental unit of scientific production, but optimizing its organizational design is a formidable task for lab heads, who play potentially conflicting roles of manager, educator, and researcher. Drawing on cross-sectional data from a questionnaire survey and bibliometric data on Japanese biology professors, this study investigates task allocation inside laboratories. Results show a general pattern that lab heads play managerial roles and members (e.g., students) are engaged in labor-intensive tasks (e.g., experiment), while revealing a substantial variation among laboratories. Further examining how this variation is related to lab-level scientific productivity, this study finds that productive task allocation differs by context. In particular, results suggest that significant task overlap across status hierarchies is more productive for basic research, and that rigidly separated task allocation is more productive in applied research. However, optimal task allocation, with regard to scientific productivity, might conflict with other goals of academic organizations, particularly training of future scientists. The paper concludes with a discussion of the policy implications of these findings. - The bureaucratization of science
In: Research Policy [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 2015
© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.While science is traditionally treated as a distinct domain of work organization, increasingly science is organized around larger and larger work groups that resemble small firms, with knowledge as the product. The growth of organized science raises the question of whether we also see a bureaucratic structuring of scientific work groups as predicted by organization theory, with implications for the academic credit system and scientific labor markets. Building on organization theory, we examine the relation between project group size, technical environment, and bureaucratic structuring of scientific work. Using survey data on scientific projects, we find size predicts bureaucratic structuring, with declining marginal effects. We also find that interdisciplinarity and task interdependence have distinct effects on bureaucratic structuring. Finally, the relationship between size and some dimensions of bureaucratic structuring is contingent on levels of work group interdependence in the field. We conclude with a discussion of the implications for policy debates about authorship and scientific careers. - Openness and innovation in the US: Collaboration form, idea generation and implementation
In: Research Policy [Peer Reviewed]
Date: September 2014
© 2016 Elsevier B.V.Much current work in management of innovation argues that it is becoming increasingly necessary for inventors and their firms to exploit information and capabilities outside the firm in order to combine one's own resources with resources from the external environment. Building on this prior work, we examine the relationship between collaboration and innovation. Using detailed information on a sample of triadic patents, with over 1900 responses in the US, we report on the rates of collaboration of various forms, and test the effects of collaboration. Our results suggest that just over 10% of inventions involve an external co-inventor and about 23% involve external (non-co-inventor) collaborators (with 27% involving any external collaborators). We find evidence that heterogeneous collaboration and university-industry collaboration in inventing drive higher invention quality. However, vertical collaboration at the inventing stage is relatively more critical to commercialization at the implementation stage than is university-industry collaboration. These results suggest that the impact of different forms of collaborative innovation may vary depending on the stage of the innovation process. - Local context, academic entrepreneurship and open science: Publication secrecy and commercial activity among Japanese and US scientists
In: Research Policy [Peer Reviewed]
Date: March 2014
Like the US before it, Japan has adopted a series of policy initiatives designed to encourage the commercialization of academic science. However, such initiatives may also adversely affect "open-science". Based on matched surveys of almost 1000 researchers in Japan and over 800 in the US, the paper examines rates of commercial activity, reasons to patent, and secrecy related to research results. In particular, it examines the extent to which participation in commercial activity is associated with publication secrecy. The results show that patenting rates are higher in Japan, while industry funding is more common in the US. In addition, the overall level of publication secrecy is greater in Japan. And, in both countries, individuals who are commercially active are less likely to share their research results through publication. But, patents are less directly linked to commercial activity in Japan than in the US, and have less impact on academic secrecy. The results suggest that academic entrepreneurship is associated with reduced participation in open science, but that the extent of adverse effects depends significantly on institutional context. © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. - Academic Entrepreneurship and Exchange of Scientific Resources: Material Transfer in Life and Materials Sciences in Japanese Universities
In: American Sociological Review [Peer Reviewed]
Date: October 2012
This study uses a sample of Japanese university scientists in life and materials sciences to examine how academic entrepreneurship has affected the norms and behaviors of academic scientists regarding sharing scientific resources. Results indicate that high levels of academic entrepreneurship in a scientific field are associated with less reliance on the gift-giving form of sharing (i.e., generalized exchange) traditionally recommended by scientific communities, and with a greater emphasis on direct benefits for givers (i.e., direct exchange), as well as a lower overall frequency of sharing. We observe these shifts in sharing behavior even among individual scientists who are not themselves entrepreneurially active; this suggests a general shift in scientific norms contingent on institutional contexts. These findings reflect contradictions inherent in current science policies that simultaneously encourage open science as well as commercial application of research results, and they suggest that the increasing emphasis on commercial activity may fundamentally change the normative structure of science. © American Sociological Association 2012. - A review on technology transfer systems in American universities
In: Studies in Science of Science [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 2011
The American universities have been the role model in technology transfer for Chinese universities.However,most attention has been paid to several top universities in the US,with the remaining situation unknown.This paper offers a systematic review of technology transfer activities in American universities,introducing the historical and legal background information and analyzing several institutions on their operations and policies in particular.We can see that American universities vary a lot in their technology transfer policies and performance.Licensing revenue is not a reliable source for most research universities.The rise of competitive agenda had a huge impact on universities commercial behavior.But we have seen a return to the traditional values and missions in recent years. - Embeddedness, social epistemology and breakthrough innovation: The case of the development of statins
In: Research Policy [Peer Reviewed]
Date: May 2010
Radical, breakthrough innovations create not only great industrial possibilities, but also great social uncertainties. When a breakthrough medical technology is discovered, the question arises as to whether to accept the possible risks involved, or to defer implementing the innovation until more data is available, and, specifically, until others have taken up the innovation and demonstrated both its efficacy, its relative safety and market acceptance. Specifically, when a firm discovers a new candidate substance for a first in its class drug, how to evaluate the potential risks becomes a key predicament for management. This paper focuses on the role of a firm's social networks and national innovation system context in influencing the social epistemology around potential breakthrough innovations. Through an examination of the processes of drug development related to the same candidate substance in a Japanese firm and an American firm, we suggest that, in addition to organizational capabilities at the corporate level, social capital, specifically formed under a certain innovation system, plays a key role in leading to the successful introduction of breakthrough innovations. © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. - A typology of 'innovation districts': What it means for regional resilience
In: Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society [Peer Reviewed]
Date: April 2010
In this article, we engage the question of regional resilience theoretically and empirically. Our theoretical approach merges discussions of regional development in evolutionary economic geography (primarily UK based) with regional resilience in urban planning (primarily US based) using Markusen's industrial districts as a framework for analysis (1996). We use data on 'triadic' patents (USA, Japan and Europe) to measure regional innovation, both per capita by region and categorized by firm size for regions in the USA. We then use this data to create a 'typology of innovation districts'. Our analysis suggests that policies encouraging small-firm innovation have broad benefits for regional economies. - Bibliometric fingerprints: Name disambiguation based on approximate structure equivalence of cognitive maps
In: Scientometrics [Peer Reviewed]
Date: April 2010
Authorship identity has long been an Achilles' heel in bibliometric analyses at the individual level. This problem appears in studies of scientists' productivity, inventor mobility and scientific collaboration. Using the concepts of cognitive maps from psychology and approximate structural equivalence from network analysis, we develop a novel algorithm for name disambiguation based on knowledge homogeneity scores. We test it on two cases, and the results show that this approach outperforms other common authorship identification methods with the ASE method providing a relatively simple algorithm that yields higher levels of accuracy with reasonable time demands. © 2010 Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, Hungary. - The importance of foreign-born talent for US innovation
In: Nature Biotechnology [Peer Reviewed]
Date: March 2010
- For money or glory? Commercialization, competition, and secrecy in the entrepreneurial university
In: Sociological Quarterly [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 2009
Scholars have grown concerned that the commercialization of academic science is increasing secrecy at the expense of cooperation and information sharing. Using data from comparable surveys of academic scientists in three fields (experimental biology, mathematics, and physics), we test whether scientists have become more competitive and more secretive over the last 30 years. We also use the recent survey to test a multivariate model of the effects of scientific competition and commercialization (patenting, industry funding, and industry collaboration) on scientific secrecy. We find that secrecy has increased, and has increased particularly for experimental biologists. Only 13 percent of experimental biologists in 1998 felt safe discussing their ongoing research with all others doing similar work. Our multivariate analysis shows that this secrecy is most related to concerns about being anticipated (scientific competition). We find that patenting is associated with increased secrecy among mathematicians and physicists, but not for experimental biologists. We find that industry funding is associated with more secrecy, while industry collaboration is associated with less secrecy, across fields. Our results suggest that the recent concern over increasing scientific secrecy has merit. However, this increased secrecy seems to result from a combination of increasing commercial linkages and increased pressures from scientific competition. Our research highlights the central role that scientists' competition for priority plays in the system of science and that, while such competition spurs effort, it also produces negative effects that recent trends toward commercialization of academic science seem to be exacerbating. © 2009 Midwest Sociological Society. - Promoting university-industry linkages in Japan: Faculty responses to a changing policy environment
In: Prometheus (United Kingdom) [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 2008
Since the mid-1990s, Japan has instituted a series of policy reforms in order to encourage greater university participation in commercial activity. Using data from a survey of scientists in engineering and biomedical fields in Japanese universities, we find that there has been a significant increase in commercial activity during this period, in particular, links to small- and medium-sized enterprises. We also find that scientists are increasingly considering business potential when choosing projects. However, we find little evidence of the increasing commercialization leading to barriers to access to research tools. We also find that, despite the growing importance of formalized university-industry ties, university-industry linkages continue to be dominated by informal ties and gift-exchange. - Where excludability matters: Material versus intellectual property in academic biomedical research
In: Research Policy [Peer Reviewed]
Date: October 2007
On the basis of survey responses from 507 academic biomedical researchers, we examine the impact of patents on access to the knowledge and material inputs that are used in subsequent research. We observe that access to knowledge inputs is largely unaffected by patents. Accessing other researchers' materials and/or data, such as cell lines, reagents, or unpublished information is, however, more problematic. The main factors associated with restricted access to materials and/or data include scientific competition, the cost of providing materials, a history of commercial activity on the part of the prospective supplier, and whether the material in question is itself a drug. © 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. - Collaboration structure, communication media, and problems in scientific work teams
In: Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 2007
This article reviews the structural characteristics of work organizations that are likely to increase collaboration problems and tests the relationships between collaboration structure and problems using data from a survey of scientists in four fields (experimental biology, mathematics, physics, and sociology). Two groups of problems are identified: problems of coordination and misunderstandings and problems of cultural differences and information security. Greater coordination problems are associated with size, distance, interdependence, and scientific competition. Problems of culture and security are associated with size, distance, scientific competition, and commercialization. Email use is associated with reporting fewer coordination problems, but not fewer problems of culture and security, while neither phone use nor face-to-face meetings significantly reduces problems. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of these findings for designers of collaboration technologies and researchers involved in scientific collaborations. © 2007 International Communication Association. - Hairisku inobeishon ni okeru kenkyusha nettowaaku no yakuwari: souyaku ni okeru nichibei hikaku
In: Journal of Science Policy and Research Management [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 2007
- Real Impediments to Academic Biomedical Research
In: Innovation Policy and the Economy [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 2007
- Evidence and anecdotes: An analysis of human gene patenting controversies
In: Nature Biotechnology [Peer Reviewed]
Date: September 2006
- Organizational Learning from Performance Feedback: A Behavioral Perspective on Innovation and Change by Henrich R. Greve
In: American Journal of Sociology
Date: May 2006
- Seido Henkakuki ni okeru Sangakurenkei—Tokyo Daigaku Kyoukan he no Shitsumonhyou Chousa no Kekka
In: Kagaku [Peer Reviewed]
Date: October 2005
- View from the bench: Patents and material transfers
In: Science [Peer Reviewed]
Date: September 2005
- Secrecy is increasing in step with competition [3]
In: Nature [Peer Reviewed]
Date: April 2003
- Science and the law: Working through the patent problem
In: Science [Peer Reviewed]
Date: February 2003
- Broadening ‘Academic’ Research: Adapting to University Reforms in Japan
In: Journal of Science Policy and Research Management [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 2003
- Review of Youth at Work by S. Tannock
In: Contemporary Sociology
Date: 2003
- R&D spillovers, patents and the incentives to innovate in Japan and the United States
In: Research Policy [Peer Reviewed]
Date: December 2002
National surveys of R&D labs across the manufacturing sectors in the US and Japan show that intraindustry R&D knowledge flows and spillovers are greater in Japan than in the US and the appropriability of rents due to innovation less. Patents in particular are observed to play a more central role in diffusing information across rivals in Japan, and appear to be a key reason for greater intraindustry R&D spillovers there, suggesting that patent policy can importantly affect information flows. Uses of patents differ between the two nations, with strategic uses of patents, particularly for negotiations, being more common in Japan. © 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. - Links and impacts: The influence of public research on industrial R&D
In: Management Science [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 2002
In this paper, we use data from the Carnegie Mellon Survey on industrial R&D to evaluate for the U.S. manufacturing sector the influence of "public" (i.e., university and government R&D lab) research on industrial R&D, the role that public research plays in industrial R&D, and the pathways through which that effect is exercised. We find that public research is critical to industrial R&D in a small number of industries and importantly affects industrial R&D across much of the manufacturing sector. Contrary to the notion that university research largely generates new ideas for industrial R&D projects, the survey responses demonstrate that public research both suggests new R&D projects and contributes to the completion of existing projects in roughly equal measure overall. The results also indicate that the key channels through which university research impacts industrial R&D include published papers and reports, public conferences and meetings, informal information exchange, and consulting. We also find that, after controlling for industry, the influence of public research on industrial R&D is disproportionately greater for larger firms as well as start-ups. - Connecting minds: computer-mediated communication and scientific work
In: Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology [Peer Reviewed]
Date: December 2000
This article summarizes the preliminary findings from a recent study of scientists in four disciplines with regard to computer-mediated communication (CMC) use and effects. Based on surveys from 333 scientists, we find that CMC use is central to both professional and research-related aspects of scientific work, and that this use differs by field. We find that e-mail use focuses on coordination activities, and its biggest effect is helping to integrate scientists into professional networks. We do not find gender differences in use, but there is some evidence that e-mail is having a differential, positive effect for women. Furthermore, CMC use is positively associated with scientific productivity and collaboration. - Computer Networks and the Virtual College
In: Science, Technology Industry Review [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 1999
- “You're Looking at the Labor Board in This Plant Right Now”: Activist Unionism in Meatpacking and Auto
In: Qualitative Sociology
Date: 1999
- Scientific communication and scientific work: a survey of four disciplines
In: Internet Research
Date: October 1998
- The effects of job characteristics on active effort at work
In: Work and Occupations [Peer Reviewed]
Date: February 1998
Building on previous research on worker extra-role effort, the authors focus their analysis on the correlates of one subset of behaviors that they call active effort. The authors argue for an exchange model, with organizations offering intrinsic, social, and material inducements in exchange for active effort by workers. Using data from a telephone survey of 270 employed adults in a large midwestern metropolitan area, the authors test a model that measures a variety of structural variables to see how they affect the level of active effort. The authors find that active effort is related to the extent to which a worker is allowed to participate and to recognition. After controlling for other variables, they found that satisfaction has little independent effect on active effort. Relations to supervisors, seniority, and wages have no net effects on active effort, although they are associated with increased satisfaction. Also, high white-collar employees report significantly higher active effort and satisfaction. - The Virtual College: Computer-Mediated Communication and Scientific Work
In: Information Society [Peer Reviewed]
Date: October 1996
Computer-mediated communication (CMC) has become an integral part of scientific work. Based on interviews with academic scientists in four fields, we discuss the impacts of CMC on the organization of scientific work. We find evidence that CMC may be leading to new collaboration patterns, more communication within collaborations, and peripherally effects. However, these effects are heavily mediated by the nature of access and the social context into which CMC has been introduced. - Computer networks and scientific work
In: SOCIAL STUDIES OF SCIENCE [Peer Reviewed]
Date: August 1996
- Review of Technological Change at Work, by I. McLoughlin and J. Clark
In: Management Learning
Date: March 1996
- Review of The American Grocery Store: The Business Evolution of an Architectural Space, by J. M. Mayo.
In: Sociological Inquiry
Date: 1995
- Review of The New Telecommunications, by R. Mansell.
In: Social Science Computer Review
Date: 1995
- Review of Women's Paid and Unpaid Labor, by N.Y. Glazer
In: American Journal of Sociology
Date: May 1994
- A qualitative protocol for studying technological change in the labor process
In: Bulletin de Méthodologie Sociologique
Date: 1994
The article specifies, illustrates. and defends the logic of a qualitative approach for studying the workplace outcomes of technologlcal change. The first stage involves the use of intensive case-study methods to discover the normative orders that mediate shop floor reactions to technological innovation. The second stage involves the use of archival analyses to test the hypotheses developed in the first stage and to generalize them to the industry over time. The third stage involves cross-case comparison to generate general theoretical statements. This approach is illustrated with reference to Zetka's (1992a: 1992b) study of technological innovation in auto body bulldtng and to Walsh's (1989; 1991) study of retall meatcutting. Qualitative Methodology. Historical Methodology. Labor Process. Technological Change Workplace Relations. Automobile Industry Meatcutters Retail Food Industry. © 1994, Sage Publications. All rights reserved. - Returns to Science: Computer Networks in Oceanography
In: Communications of the ACM [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 1993
- Self-Selected and Randomly-Selected Respondents in a Computer Network Survey
In: Public Opinion Quarterly [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 1992
- THE SOCIAL CONTEXT OF TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE: The Case of the Retail Food Industry
In: Sociological Quarterly [Peer Reviewed]
Date: 1991
Technological innovations result not just from advances in science, but also social system reorganization. Reorganization is problematic, as various organizations and constituents pursue their interests and causes. Expanding on previous work in the economics and sociology of innovation, three cases from the retail food industry (frozen meat, boxed beef, and scanners) illustrate the process described in a politicized‐context model of innovation. Market context, political contingencies, and established social relations all influence innovations. Thus, including these factors in the politicized‐context model provides better understanding of the particular paths of innovation. Copyright © 1991, Wiley Blackwell. All rights reserved - Review of Beneath the Miracle, by F.C. Deyo
In: Contemporary Sociology
Date: September 1990
- Technological Change and the Division of Labor: The case of retail meatcutters
In: Work and Occupations
Date: 1989
This article examines the effects of technological changes on the division of labor and skill requirements for a craft occupation (meatcutter) in a service industry (retail food). The article defines skill as a multidimensional concept with three components (technical competence, scarcity, and high status) and emphasizes the importance of contextual factors on deskilling. The analysis suggests that deskilling is not a linear function of technological innovation. Rather, new technology can either increase or decrease workers’ skills, and workers can have some control over which technology gets introduced. Deskilling technology is dependent on the ability to develop a market for standardized goods, which can be difficult, if not impossible, for certain structurally diverse markets. © 1989, SAGE PUBLICATIONS. All rights reserved.
Chapters
- Working Longer, Living Less
Date: 2007
- The effects of research tool patents and licensing on biomedical innovation
Date: 2006
© Cambridge University Press 2006 and 2009.There is widespread consensus that patents have long benefited biomedical innovation. A forty-year empirical legacy suggests that patents are more effective, for example, in protecting the commercialization and licensing of innovation in the drug industry than in any other. Patents are also widely acknowledged as providing the basis for the surge in biotechnology startup activity witnessed over the past two decades. Heller and Eisenberg (1998) and the National Research Council (NRC) (1997) have suggested, however, that recent policies and practices associated with the granting, assertion, and licensing of patents on research tools may now be undercutting the stimulative effect of patents on drugs and related biomedical discoveries. In this chapter we report the results of seventy interviews with personnel at biotechnology and pharmaceutical firms and universities in considering the effects of research tool patents on industrial or academic biomedical research. We conceive of research tools broadly to include any tangible or informational input into the process of discovering a drug or any other medical therapy or method of diagnosing disease. Heller and Eisenberg (1998) argue that biomedical innovation has become susceptible to what they call a "tragedy of the anticommons," which can emerge when there are numerous property right claims to separate building blocks for some product or line of research. When these property rights are held by numerous claimants (especially if they are from different kinds of institutions), the negotiations necessary for their combination may fail, quashing the pursuit of otherwise promising lines of research or product development. - Links and impacts: The influence of public research on industrial R &D
Date: December 2003
- Patenting and licensing of research tools and biomedical innovation
Date: 2003
- R&D information flows and patenting in Japan and the United States
Date: 2003
- Computer Network Use, Collaboration Structures and Productivity
Date: 2002
- Public research, patents and implications for industrial R&D in the drug, biotechnology, semiconductor and computer industries
Date: 2002
- R&D Information Flows, Appropriability and R&D Intensity
Date: 2001
- Industry and the Academy: Uneasy Partners in the Cause of Technological Advance
Date: 1998
- Computer Networks in Field Research
Date: 1992
- Intellectual Property and New Technology
Date: 1989
Working Papers
- The acquisition and commercialization of invention in American manufacturing: Incidence and impact
Date: July 2016
© 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.Recent accounts suggest the development and commercialization of invention has become more "open." Greater division of labor between inventors and innovators can enhance social welfare through gains from trade and economies of specialization. Moreover, this extensive reliance upon outside sources for invention also suggests that understanding the factors that condition the extramural supply of inventions to innovators is crucial to understanding the determinants of the rate and direction of innovative activity. This paper reports on a recent survey of over 5000 American manufacturing sector firms on the extent to which innovators rely upon external sources of invention. Our results indicate that, between 2007 and 2009, 16% of manufacturing firms had innovated-meaning had introduced a product that was new to the industry. Of these, 49% report that their most important new product had originated from an outside source, notably customers, suppliers and technology specialists (i.e., universities, independent inventors and R&D contractors). We also compare the contribution of each source to innovation in the US economy. Although customers are the most common outside source, inventions acquired from technology specialists tend to be the more economically significant in term of their gross commercial value. As a group, external sources of invention make a significant contribution to the overall rate of innovation in the economy. Innovation policies, both public and private, should pay careful attention to the external supply of invention, and the efficiency of the mechanisms affecting the relationships between inventors and innovators. - STTR: An Assessment of the Small Business Technology Transfer Program
Date: 2016
- SBIR at the National Science Foundation
Date: 2015
- SBIR/STTR at the National Institutes of Health.
Date: 2015
- SBIR at the Department of Defense
Date: 2014
- Intra-Organizational Integration and Innovation: Organizational Structure, Environmental Contingency and R&D Performance
Date: 2011
It is widely thought that intra-firm integration has a positive effect on organizational performance, especially in environments characterized by complex and uncertain information. However, counter arguments suggest that integration may limit flexibility and thereby reduce performance in the face of uncertainty. Research and development activities of a firm are especially likely to face complex and uncertain information environments. Following prior work in contingency theory, this paper analyzes the effects of intra-organizational integration on manufacturing firms’ innovative performance. Based on a survey of R&D units in US manufacturing firms and patent data from the NBER patent database, we examine the relation between mechanisms for linking R&D to other units of the firm and the relative innovativeness of the firm. Furthermore, we argue that the impact of integration may vary by the importance of secrecy in protecting firms’ innovation advantages. We find that intra-firm integration is associated with higher self-reported innovativeness and more patents. We also find some evidence that this effect is moderated by the appropriability regime the firm faces, with the benefits of cross-functional integration being weaker in industries where secrecy is especially important. These results both support and develop the contingency model of organizational performance.
- Organizational paths of commercializing patented inventions: The effects of transaction costs, firm capabilities, and collaborative ties
Date: 2011
This study examines the factors affecting modes of commercializing patented inventions using a novel dataset based on a survey of U.S. inventors. We find that technological uncertainty and possessing complementary assets raise the propensity for internal commercialization. We find that R&D collaboration with firms in a horizontal relationship is likely to increase the propensity to license the invention. In addition, the paper shows that macro-level environment conditions that affect exchange conditions, such as technology familiarity, influence the effects of capabilities on governance choice.
- Commercialization and Other Uses of Patents in Japan and the US: Major Findings From the RIETI-Georgia Tech Inventor Survey
Date: 2009
Based on the newly implemented inventor survey in Japan and the US, we have examined the commercialization and other uses of triadic patents. Although the two countries have a similar overall level of commercialization (60% of the triadic patents), the structure is different: in Japan, we see a higher incidence of in-house use relative to the overall level of commercialization, more inventions being licensed and less used for startups. We also see more multiple uses (in-house and license/startup) in Japan. In both countries licensing plays a relatively important role for commercializing the inventions from R&D targeted to new business and to enhancing the technology base. Consistently, licensing becomes more important as a patenting reason as the invention involves more scientific knowledge. The key difference in startups between the two countries is a high incidence of the inventions of university researchers being used for startups in the US (35%). In both countries strategic holding (use of the patents for blocking and the prevention of inventing around) is one of the major reasons of non-commercialized patents. Only 20% of the internally commercialized patents can be used on a stand-alone basis in both countries, and both the incidence of cross-license conditional on license and the incidence of license itself tend to increase with the size of the bundle of the patents to be jointly used with that invention. As appropriation measures, the first mover advantage (FMA) in commercialization and the FMA in R&D are the most important in both countries, while the latter becomes more important as the invention involves more scientific knowledge. The US inventors rank patent enforcement significantly higher than possessing complementary capabilities, while the reverse is the case for Japanese inventors. In addition, enhancing the exclusive exploitation of the invention is a more important patenting reason in the US. The fact that the commercialization rate of patented inventions is quite similar between the two countries despite of the significant difference of the appreciation of exclusivity indicates that exclusivity may promote exploitation in certain areas and retard it in others. Finally, non-conventional patenting reasons are also important in both countries: blocking and pure defense are at least as important as licensing, and corporate reputation is an important reason for patenting by small firms.
- The R&D process in the US and Japan: Major findings from the RIETI-Georgia Tech Inventor Survey
Date: 2009
This paper analyzes and compares the objective, the nature and the performance of R&D projects in the US and Japan, based on the first large scale systematic survey of inventors, focusing on the R&D projects yielding triadic patents. Major findings are the following. First, the projects for enhancing the existing business line of a firm account for a large share of R&D projects in both countries, confirming the view that the R&D investment is significantly conditioned by the existing complementary asset of a firm. In both countries, the inventions from R&D for existing business have the highest in-house utilization rate but use least the scientific and technical literature for their conceptions, while the reverse is the case for the inventions from R&D for new technology base (or for cultivating seeds). R&D projects for enhancing the technology base are much more common in the US. This difference can be partly accounted for by US inventors being more likely to have a PhD, but not by the differences in the structure of finance. US government financial support is relatively more targeted to projects for existing business and US venture capital provides support mainly projects for creating new business (6% of them), but not for more upstream projects.
Only about 20-30% of the projects are for process innovation in both countries, providing direct evidence for the earlier findings that were based on US patent information. Product innovation generates process patents more often in Japan than in the US (25% vs. 10%), while product innovation projects are relatively more numerous in Japan. In both countries a significant share of inventions (more than 20%) were not the result of an R&D project, and a substantial proportion of such inventions are valued among the top 10% of patents, suggesting that R&D expenditure significantly underestimates inventive activities. A US invention is more often an unexpected by-product of an R&D project (11%) than in Japan (3.4%). The two countries have surprisingly similar distributions of R&D projects in man month and the average team size. In both countries, smaller firms tend to have relatively more high-value patents. In the US, inventors from very small firms (with less than 100 employees) and universities jointly account for more than one quarter of the top 10% inventions, even though they account for only 14% of all inventions.
Man-months expended for an invention has a significant correlation with the performance of the R&D projects for existing business, less so for new business and not at all for those enhancing the technology base,suggesting substantial heterogeneity by project types in the determinants of the performance and in the uncertainty. A PhD has a significant correlation with R&D project performance especially for new business.
- For Money or Glory?: Commercialization, Competition and Secrecy in the Entrepreneurial University
Date: 2008
Scholars have grown concerned that the commercialization of academic science is increasing secrecy at the expense of cooperation and information sharing. Using data from comparable surveys of academic scientists in three fields (experimental biology, mathematics and physics), we test whether scientists have become more competitive and more secretive over the last 30 years. We also use the recent survey to test a multivariate model of the effects of scientific competition and commercialization (patenting, industry funding and industry collaboration) on scientific secrecy. We find that secrecy has increased, and has increased particularly for experimental biologists. Only 13% of experimental biologists in 1998 felt safe discussing their ongoing research with all others doing similar work. Our multivariate analysis shows that this secrecy is most related to concerns about being anticipated (scientific competition). We find that patenting is associated with increased secrecy among mathematicians and physicists, but not for experimental biologists. We find that industry funding is associated with more secrecy, while industry collaboration is associated with less secrecy, across fields. Our results suggest that the recent concern over increasing scientific secrecy has merit. However, this increased secrecy seems to result from a combination of increasing commercial linkages and increased pressures from scientific competition. Our research highlights the central role that scientists’ competition for priority plays in the system of science and that, while such competition spurs effort, it also produces negative effects that recent trends toward commercialization of academic science seem to be exacerbating.
- Promoting University-Industry Linkages in Japan: Faculty Responses to a Changing Policy Environment
Date: 2008
Since the mid-1990s, Japan has instituted a series of policy reforms in order to encourage greater university participation in commercial activity. Using data from a survey of scientists in engineering and biomedical fields in Japanese universities, we find that there has been a significant increase in commercial activity during this period, in particular, links to small- and medium-sized enterprises. We also find that scientists are increasingly considering business potential when choosing projects. However, we find little evidence of the increasing commercialization leading to barriers to access to research tools. We also find that, despite the growing importance of formalized university–industry ties, university–industry linkages continue to be dominated by informal ties and gift-exchange.
- Where Excludability Matters: Material v. Intellectual Property in Academic Biomedical Research
Date: 2007
On the basis of survey responses from 507 academic biomedical researchers, we examine the impact of patents on access to the knowledge and material inputs that are used in subsequent research. We observe that access to knowledge inputs is largely unaffected by patents. Accessing other researchers’ materials, such as cell lines, reagents, and antigens is, however, more problematic. The main factors associated with restricted access to materials include scientific competition, the cost of providing materials, a history of commercial activity on the part of the prospective supplier, and whether the material in question is itself a drug.
- Transforming European Science through Information and Communication Technologies: Challenges and Opportunities of the Digital Age
Date: September 1999
- Connecting and Collaborating: Issues for the Sciences
Date: 1996
- Commercialization and Other Uses of Patents in Japan and the U.S.: Major findings from the RIETI-Georgia Tech inventor survey
Based on the newly implemented inventor survey in Japan and the U.S., we have examined the commercialization and other uses of triadic patents. Although the two countries have a similar overall level of commercialization (60% of the triadic patents), the structure is different: in Japan, we see a higher incidence of in-house use relative to the overall level of commercialization, more inventions being licensed and less used for startups. We also see more multiple uses(in-house and license/startup) in Japan. In both countries licensing plays a relatively important role for commercializing the inventions from R&D targeted to new business and to enhancing the technology base. Consistently, licensing becomes more important as a patenting reason as the invention involves more scientific knowledge. The key difference in startups between the two countries is a high incidence of the inventions of university researchers being used for startups in the U.S. (35%). In both countries strategic holding (use of the patents for blocking and the prevention of inventing around) is one of the major reasons of non-commercialized patents. Only 20% of the internally commercialized patents can be used on a stand-alone basis in both countries, and both the incidence of cross-license conditional on license and the incidence of license itself tend to increase with the size of the bundle of the patents to be jointly used with that invention. As appropriation measures, the first mover advantage(FMA)in commercialization and the FMA in R&D are the most important in both countries, while the latter becomes more important as the invention involves more scientific knowledge. The U.S. inventors rank patent enforcement significantly higher than possessing complementary capabilities, while the reverse is the case for Japanese inventors. In addition, enhancing the exclusive exploitation of the invention is a more important patenting reason in the U.S. The fact that the commercialization rate of patented inventions is quite similar between the two countries despite of the significant difference of the appreciation of exclusivity indicates that exclusivity may promote exploitation in certain areas and retard it in others. Finally, non-conventional patenting reasons are also important in both countries: blocking and pure defense are at least as important as licensing, and corporate reputation is an important reason for patenting by small firms.
- How “open” is innovation in the US and Japan?
While individual inventors are key to technological progress, it is becoming increasingly necessary for inventors and their firms to exploit information and capabilities outside the firm in order to combine one’s own resources with resources from the external environment. To better understand the collaborative process in inventions, we collected detailed information on a sample of triadic patents, focusing on the invention process, sources of ideas, and collaboration (the RIETI-Georgia Tech inventor survey), with over 1900 responses from the US and over 3600 responses from Japan. Our results suggest that in both countries, just over 10% of inventions involved an external co-inventor and about 30% involved external (non-co-inventor) collaborators (with the rate of collaboration some what higher in Japan). Cross-organizational co-inventions increase as firm size declines, especially in Japan. In both countries, vertical collaborations (both co-inventions and other collaborations) with users and suppliers were the most common. The most important knowledge sources were similar in the two countries: patents, customers, publications, and information from other parts of the firm, although their relative rankings varied somewhat. In particular, patent literature is a relatively more important information source in Japan and scientific literature is relatively more important in the US. Since our evidence suggest that inventors see literature globally, such difference does not seem to be driven by the difference of the disclosed literature (for an example, more early patent disclosure in Japan) as suggested by earlier literature but by that of the incentive and capability of the inventors. While in both countries most R&D funding is provided internally, venture capital and government funding play a greater role in the US than in Japan, with venture capital funds especially important for the smallest US firms. On the other hand, industry funding plays a greater role for university researchers’ inventions in Japan. There is some evidence that “open innovation” through collaborations enhances not only the technical significance of the invention, but also the probability of its commercialization through, for an example, vertical collaboration facilitating better matches between the needs of customers or the capabilities of suppliers.
- Intra-organizational integration and innovation: organizational structure, environmental contingency and R&D performance
It is widely thought that intra-firm integration has a positive effect on organizational performance, especially in environments characterized by complex and uncertain information. However, counter arguments suggest that integration may limit flexibility and thereby reduce performance in the face of uncertainty. Research and development activities of a firm are especially likely to face complex and uncertain information environments. Following prior work in contingency theory, this paper analyzes the effects of intra-organizational integration on manufacturing firms’ innovative performance. Based on a survey of R&D units in US manufacturing firms and patent data from the NBER patent database, we examine the relation between mechanisms for linking R&D to other units of the firm and the relative innovativeness of the firm. Furthermore, we argue that the impact of integration may vary by the importance of secrecy in protecting firms’ innovation advantages. We find that intra-firm integration is associated with higher self-reported innovativeness and more patents. We also find some evidence that this effect is moderated by the appropriability regime the firm faces, with the benefits of cross-functional integration being weaker in industries where secrecy is especially important. These results both support and develop the contingency model of organizational performance.
- Protecting Their Intellectual Assets: Appropriability Conditions and Why U.S. Manufacturing Firms Patent (or Not)
Based on a survey questionnaire administered to 1478 R&D labs in the U.S. manufacturing sector in 1994, we find that firms typically protect the profits due to invention with a range of mechanisms, including patents, secrecy, lead time advantages and the use of complementary marketing and manufacturing capabilities. Of these mechanisms, however, patents tend to be the least emphasized by firms in the majority of manufacturing industries, and secrecy and lead time tend to be emphasized most heavily. A comparison of our results with the earlier survey findings of Levin et al. [1987] suggest that patents may be relied upon somewhat more heavily by larger firms now than in the early 1980s. For the protection of product innovations, secrecy now appears to be much more heavily employed across most industries than previously. Our results on the motives to patent indicate that firms patent for reasons that often extend beyond directly profiting from a patented innovation through either its commercialization or licensing. In addition to the prevention of copying, the most prominent motives for patenting include the prevention of rivals from patenting related inventions (i.e., patent blocking'), the use of patents in negotiations and the prevention of suits. We find that firms commonly patent for different reasons in discrete' product industries, such as chemicals, versus complex' product industries, such as telecommunications equipment or semiconductors. In the former, firms appear to use their patents commonly to block the development of substitutes by rivals, and in the latter, firms are much more likely to use patents to force rivals into negotiations.
- The R&D Process in the U.S. and Japan: Major findings from the RIETI-Georgia Tech inventor survey
This paper analyzes and compares the objective, the nature and the performance of R&D projects in the US and Japan, based on the first large scale systematic survey of inventors, focusing on the R&D projects yielding triadic patents. Major findings are the following. First, the projects for enhancing the existing business line of a firm account for a large share of R&D projects in both countries, confirming the view that the R&D investment is significantly conditioned by the existing complementary asset of a firm. In both countries, the inventions from R&D for existing business have the highest in-house utilization rate but use least the scientific and technical literature for their conceptions, while the reverse is the case for the inventions from R&D for new technology base (or for cultivating seeds). R&D projects for enhancing the technology base are much more common in the US. This difference can be partly accounted for by US inventors being more likely to have a PhD, but not by the differences in the structure of finance. US government financial support is relatively more targeted to projects for existing business and US venture capital provides support mainly projects for creating new business (6% of them), but not for more upstream projects. Only about 20-30% of the projects are for process innovation in both countries, providing direct evidence for the earlier findings that were based on US patent information. Product innovation generates process patents more often in Japan than in the US (25% vs. 10%), while product innovation projects are relatively more numerous in Japan. In both countries a significant share of inventions (more than 20%) were not the result of an R&D project, and a substantial proportion of such inventions are valued among the top 10% of patents, suggesting that R&D expenditure significantly underestimates inventive activities. A US invention is more often an unexpected by-product of an R&D project (11%) than in Japan (3.4%). The two countries have surprisingly similar distributions of R&D projects in man month and the average team size. In both countries, smaller firms tend to have relatively more high-value patents. In the US, inventors from very small firms (with less than 100 employees) and universities jointly account for more than one quarter of the top 10% inventions, even though they account for only 14% of all inventions. Man-months expended for an invention has a significant correlation with the performance of the R&D projects for existing business, less so for new business and not at all for those enhancing the technology base, suggesting substantial heterogeneity by project types in the determinants of the performance and in the uncertainty. A PhD has a significant correlation with R&D project performance especially for new business.
- Who Invents?: Evidence from the Japan-U.S. inventor survey
Human resources are increasingly seen as a key to innovation competitiveness, and there is a need for detailed, systematic data on the demographics of inventors, their motivations, and their careers. To gain systematic data on who invents, we collected detailed information on a sample of inventors in the U.S. and Japan (the RIETI-Georgia Tech inventor survey). The data come from a unique set of matched surveys of U.S. and Japanese inventors of triadic patents, i.e., patents from patent families with granted patents in the U.S. and applications filed in Japan and in the EPO, with data from over 1900 responses from the U.S. and over 3600 responses from Japan. Based on these survey data, we compare the profiles, motivations, mobility and performance of inventors in the U.S. and Japan. Overall, we find some important similarities between inventors in the U.S. and Japan. The distribution across functional affiliations within the firm, by gender, by educational fields and their motivations, are all quite similar. In particular, in both countries we find inventors emphasizing task motivations over pecuniary motivations. Firm-centered motivation (e.g., generating value for my firm) is also an important reason for inventing and this reason is relatively more important in the U.S. than Japan. Their distribution across types of organizations is quite similar. The percent of university inventors is nearly the same in the two countries, and the distribution of these inventors across technology classes is also quite similar. However, the percent from very small firms is significantly higher in the U.S. There are a few important differences. American inventors are much more likely to have a Ph.D. American inventors are older (even controlling for differences in the share of the inventors with Ph.D.s). The modal Japanese inventor has his first invention in his 20s, while for the U.S., the mode is the early 30s, and we also find many more American inventors over age 55 at the time of their triadic patent invention. In both countries, older inventors tend to produce higher value patents. American inventors are also much more mobile (although Japanese inventors with Ph.D.s also have high rates of mobility, mainly in the form of secondments). In the U.S., mobility tends to decline with age, while in Japan, mobility is higher for older inventors (likely due to the differences in retirement ages in the two countries). In both countries, mobility is associated with greater access to outside information. Finally, we find that foreign-born inventors are very important in the U.S. (we did not collect data on country of origin for Japan). Overall, these results suggest that inventor characteristics may be important for firm performance, and that institutional differences may affect the profile of inventors in each country, although the inventors of the two countries are very similar in many respects. Future work will examine how these cross-national differences in inventor profiles affect innovation in each country.
Patents
- Identification disambiguation in databases