What makes companies pursue an open science strategy?

Whereas recent scholarly research has provided many insights about universities engaging in commercial activities, there is still little empirical evidence regarding the opposite phenomenon of companies disseminating scientific knowledge. Our paper aims to fill this gap and explores the motivations of firms that disclose research outcomes in a scientific format. Besides considering an internal firm dimension, we focus particularly on knowledge sourcing from academic institutions and the appropriability regime using a cost-benefit framework. We conduct an econometric analysis with firm-level data from the fourth edition of the French Community Innovation Survey (CIS4) and matched scientific publications for a sample of 2,512 R&D performing firms from all manufacturing sectors. The analysis provides evidence that the access to important scientific knowledge imposes the adoption of academic disclosure principles, whereas the mere existence of collaborative links with academic institutions is not a strong predictor. Furthermore, the results suggest that overall industry conditions are influential in shaping the cost-benefit rationale of firms with respect to scientific disclosure.