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Patenting activities and technology commercialization in nanotechnology are being increasingly driven by international collaboration. These collaborative arrangements are often based on patents' portfolio complementarities requiring managerial capabilities in terms of searching for external partners and assessing the patents portfolio. To support technology transfer within or across countries, this study examines a sample of 28,895 patents filed in carbon nanotubes to assess key players, their technology domains and which commercialization strategies Italy-based organizations may deploy since the dominant position of Chinese organizations. Our findings show that significant linkages of the Italian nanotech system appear as being highly centralized around key players within their own cluster. Overall, the results suggest that strengthening the linkages between scientific and corporate actors may eliminate many barriers and accelerate nanotech commercialization by rethinking teaching and training programs for young researchers. Implications for policy-makers are also highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The domain of neuroscience is differently spreading in management fields and little retrospective work on this spotty evolution has been made so far. This paper presents a thorough bibliometric and topic modeling analysis that scrutinize the progress of neuroscience in management. Firstly, we identified 151 published studies and provided a description of the research area by identifying the publishing trend in the number of studies on the topic and the most impactful sources and publications. Secondly, we used bibliometrics and data mapping techniques to graphically represent established and emergent research clusters (i.e., co-authorship, keywords co-occurrence and co-cited references). Thirdly and finally, a more thorough content analysis thorough topic modeling identified key research topics for each of the management branches in which neuroscience has developed so far. We draw on the systematic review's results to identify the factors that have limited the progress of neuroscience in several management fields and suggest a new approach that can overcome those limits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A main issue in patent licensing agreements is the contract payment structure, and how this distributes the value created between the licensor and the licensee. In this article, we analyze the key factors affecting the allocation of value between the licensor and licensee from combined real options and bargaining perspective. In doing so, we explicitly recognize the value of real options embedded in the development process and the sequential structure of licensing contracts. We test our hypotheses on a sample of 175 licensing deals in the U.S. biopharmaceutical industry collected from Medtrack and Recap IQ databases. Our results show that the value appropriated by the licensor is lower when a higher fraction of the payments comes from royalties, the agreement is signed in the later stages of technology development and the licensee has more prior managerial experience in licensing activities. Conversely, the value captured by licensor is higher in licensing schemes where the licensee pays for development. This study contributes to the contract design literature in R&D alliances and provides insight for future research to incorporate real options lens to disentangle the complexities of inter-firm strategies in innovation eco-sistems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to investigate university-firm relationships in terms of knowledge creation and transfer. The paper shows how the firms' absorptive capacity influences universities' research agenda. Focusing on two specific contexts: nanotechnologies (carbon nanotubes) and Chinese universities patenting activity the study show the relevance of absorptive capacity, measured in terms of S&T public expenditures, in determining universities research priorities. Structured panel data enlists the patent activity of 86 Chinese universities (universities with more then 10 registered patents) related to carbon nanotubes field since 2000 to present. We found that public expenditures in S&T, increasing firms' absorptive capacity, push up the number of patent registered and influence universities research priorities. Some peculiarities have emerged in the analysis thanks to some result in countertendency with the cited literature. Data on renewal suggest some form of informal or tacit technology transfer strategy between academia and market, and the countertendency in data on claims demonstrate the demand-pull inclination of university research. Implications and limitations are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent increase in firms' patenting activity and in subsequent infringement litigations has made clear that firms need to enhance patent enforceability and to pursue proper strategies to increase the appropriability of innovation outcomes and related intellectual property (IP) rights. Accordingly, the aim of this paper is to explore how firms employ Forum Shopping - defined as an unfair but perfectly legal exploitation of jurisdiction and venue rules to affect the outcome of a lawsuit - as an offensive IP strategy and to understand which firm's characteristics and IP management practices affect its relevance. Drawing upon a sample of about 300 firms that have undertaken at least one patent litigation during the last 5 years, we estimate how firms' patent intensity, prior experience in patent litigation, and the extent of geographical coverage of patent protection affect the likelihood that firms make use of such a legal practice. From the findings of the study we draw suggestions for both theory and practice. Particularly, we stress that legal astuteness -as a firm's capability - and forum shopping - as its iconic representation -should be considered by firms as a strategic resource rather than a cost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]