Purpose Intellectual property protection mechanisms (IPPMs) include a variety of methods suitable for protecting valuable intangible assets of companies, and it is of great relevance to study how companies use these mechanisms to ensure the appropriability of innovation, in a context in which...

Purpose: The measure of companies' Innovation Performance is fundamental for enhancing the value and decision-making processes of firms. The purpose of this paper is to present a new measure of Innovation Performance, called Innovation Patent Index (IPI), which makes it possible to...

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the financial resources invested in advanced manufacturing technologies (AMTs) and social capital (SC), in terms of the set of internal and external relationships a firm holds, have a positive effect on the adoption of Industry 4.0...

Purpose – The purpose of the paper is to analyse the changing of governance modes for the acquisition of external technology in the context of design driven innovation. Design/methodology/approach – This is an explorative study drawing on cases of new product development (NPD) by six...

Purpose Considering that SMEs are widely recognized as important innovators and, in the past years, have registered increasing levels of patenting, the purpose of this paper is to unveil the impact of both internal and external knowledge sourcing on SME patenting performance and test the...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to describe how the patent planning and patent evaluation processes might be redesigned for firms intending to move from a mere accumulation of patents to a more thoughtful patent management approach that couples protection with the reduction of cost related...