Papers by Salvatore Torrisi
We thank Rishab Ghosh and the participants in the EC DG IT study on "The effects of allowing... more We thank Rishab Ghosh and the participants in the EC DG IT study on "The effects of allowing patents claims for computer-implemented inventions " for discussing with us several issues concerning patents and IPR. Moreover, we would like to thank Armando Benincasa from Bureau Van Dijk, Elvio Ciccardini, and Gianluca Tarasconi from CESPRI- Bocconi University for their valuable assistance in data collection. Colin Webb has provided us with data on citations to EPO patents. Comments from seminar and conference
We analyze patent spinoffs by looking at the organizational characteristics of the parent organiz... more We analyze patent spinoffs by looking at the organizational characteristics of the parent organization, i.e. the firm where the patented invention has occurred. We consider organizational dimensions such as the adoption of teamwork, the decisional autonomy of inventors and collaboration with external parties during the inventive process. We elaborate hypotheses on the association between these characteristics and the likelihood of spinoff. We also control for individual characteristics of the new firm?s founders such as age, R&D experience and risk tolerance. Our empirical analysis is based on PatvalEU II, Patval-US and Patval-JP surveys conducted within the 7FP InnoS&T project. These surveys draw on EPO patent inventors residents in the US, EU, Japan and Israel. Our unit of analysis is the patent-employer-inventor combination which is at risk of spawning a new patent-based firm. Probit estimations largely provide support to our hypotheses.
Almatourism: Journal of Tourism, Culture and Territorial Development, 2009
Tourism has a significant economic impact as displayed by several studies (WTO, 2006; WTTC, 2007)... more Tourism has a significant economic impact as displayed by several studies (WTO, 2006; WTTC, 2007). The tourist sector shows many key features of the modern economy such as globalization, mobility and information‐intensity and, as a consequence, it is considered an important target for policy makers across different countries and regions (Ryan, 2009). While the potential advantages associated with the development of the tourist sector have been discussed by a rich stream of the literature, only few studies have considered tourist development as an indicator of international openness and a source of regional economic performance (e.g., Gambardella et al., 2009; Mariani and Torrisi, 2007; Presutti, 2006). A thorough examination of the links between the tourist sector, international openness and regional growth represents then a relevant and promising field of future research. Previous studies on the European context have investigated the share of hotels in the population of a region an...
Academy of Management Proceedings, 2017
This paper investigates the validity of patent citations as indicators of knowledge flows between... more This paper investigates the validity of patent citations as indicators of knowledge flows between business organizations. It compares patent citations with inventors' assessment of the importance of business organizations as knowledge sources. We find sizeable measurement errors in citation-based indicators, which highlight strategic rationales for citing rather than knowledge transfers.
Research Policy, 2016
This paper employs data from a large-scale survey (PatVal2) of inventors in Europe, the USA and J... more This paper employs data from a large-scale survey (PatVal2) of inventors in Europe, the USA and Japan who were listed in patent applications filed at the European Patent Office with priority years between 2003 and 2005. We provide evidence about the reasons for patenting and the ways in which patents are being utilized. A substantial share of patents is not being used internally or for market transactions, which confirms the importance of strategic patenting. We investigate different types of unused patents ? unused blocking patents and sleeping patents. We also examine the association between used and unused patents and their characteristics such as family size, scope, generality and overlapping claims, technology area (complexity and concentration), type of applicant (firm size and the size of the firm?s patent portfolio), and the competitive environment where these patents originate (presence of one or more parties competing for the same patent). We discuss our results and derive an agenda for future research on innovation and patent policy. Jelcodes:M21,L21 Used, blocking and sleeping patents: Empirical evidence from a large-scale inventor survey
High tecnology and the evolution of the italian industrial system
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2003
India, Ireland and Israel have experienced a high growth in the software industry especially duri... more India, Ireland and Israel have experienced a high growth in the software industry especially during the 1990s. This paper aims to analyze the role of multinational corporations (MNCs) in the development of the software industry in these countries. The study is centred on software production and IT-related services-software development, chip design and electronic devices design, computer and Internet services such as web design and maintenance, and call centres. The empirical analysis leads to two final conclusions. First, it shows that the evolution of software activities and the role of MNCs vary considerably across these three countries. The main differences concern the time of entry of MNCs relative to domestic firms and the type of activities conducted by MNCs, which appear to reflect different regional comparative advantages. The second final conclusion is that the overall impact of MNCs on the development of the domestic software industry in the three examples analysed is quite controversial. Ireland is the only case where many MNCs entered before the domestic industry started and contributed on various grounds to its emergence, mainly as customers and sources of competencies. In Israel and India, the positive effects of MNCs on domestic firms, such as reputation, access to capital and managerial capabilities, have become apparent only in recent years. This suggests that analysts of MNCs' linkages and policy makers in emerging regions should devote attention to MNCs' entry timing in new industries.
Competence accumulation and collaborative ventures: evidence from the largest European electronics forms and implications for EU technological policies
Network Knowledge in International Business
International Journal of Industrial Organization, 2010
This paper investigates the role of skills and the division of labor among participants in collec... more This paper investigates the role of skills and the division of labor among participants in collective inventions. Our analysis draws on a large sample of projects registered at Sourceforge.net, the world's largest incubator of open source software activity. We test the hypothesis that the level of skills of participants and their skill variety are important for project performance. Skill heterogeneity across participants is in line with two fundamental organizational features of the open source development model: team work and modular design. We also explore the hypothesis whether the level of modularization of project activities is an important predictor of performance. Our econometric estimations show that both skill level and skill heterogeneity positively affect projects' survival and performances. However, the impact of skill diversity is non linear. Design modularity is also positively associated with the performance of the project.
Industrial and Corporate Change, 2010
RESUMO Este trabalho analisa o desempenho de firmas localizadas em em três economias emergentes-Í... more RESUMO Este trabalho analisa o desempenho de firmas localizadas em em três economias emergentes-Índia, Irlanda e Israel. A análise empírica, baseada em uma amostra de 876 empresas, faz duas perguntas principais. Primeira, pergunta-se que fatores afetam a decisão da firma para entrar no mercado internacional. Utiliza-se marcas de software software registradas pelo USPTO como uma proxy para entrada. O tempo de entrada é representado pelo ano em que a firma registra sua primeira marca no bando de dados do USPTO. A segunda é sobre os fatores que determinam a sobrevivência da firma em mercados internacionais. Deseja-se saber se estes fatores são semelhantes ou diferentes daqueles que afetam a entrada. A pesquisa usa as renovações da marca registrada e o uso de novas marcas como uma proxy para a sobrevivência em mercados internacionais. A análise empírica indica que há diferenças significativas entre os fatores que afetam a entrada e os fatores que afetam sobrevivência.
This paper provides novel empirical evidence on the private value of patents and R&D. We analyze ... more This paper provides novel empirical evidence on the private value of patents and R&D. We analyze an unbalanced sample of firms from five EU countries-France, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden and the UK in the period 1985-2005. We explore the relationship between firm's stock market value and patents, accounting for the 'quality' of EPO patents. We find that Tobin's q is positively and significantly associated with R&D and patent stocks. In contrast to results for the U.S., forward citations do not add information beyond that in patents. However, the composite quality indicator based on backward citations, forward citations and the number of technical fields covered by the patent is informative for value. Software patents account for a rising share of total patents in the EPO. Moreover, some scholars of innovation and intellectual property rights argue that software and business methods patents on average are of poor quality and that these patents are applied for merely to build portfolios rather than for protection of real inventions. We therefore tested for the impact of software patents on the market value of the firm and did not find any significant effect, in contrast to results for the United States. However, in Europe, such patents are highly concentrated, with 90 per cent of the software patents in our sample held by just 15 of the firms.
This paper employs a sample of 3,525 manufacturing firms in Italy to estimate the impact of inves... more This paper employs a sample of 3,525 manufacturing firms in Italy to estimate the impact of investments in Information & Communication Technology (ICT) on firms' productivity. The results, which are confirmed by separate estimations for individual industries or groups thereof, support the hypothesis that the ICTs are a general-purpose technology, or a new technological paradigm. This is because, like with electricity, they influence the productivity of firms in many industries, including traditional ones. Moreover, the firms with higher investments in ICTs show higher employment growth. Our results also indicate that there are differences among firms in the propensity to invest in the ICTs, irrespective of their industry. JEL Codes: L60, D24, L86, G31 Keywords: Firm, Investment, Manufacturing, Productivity
In the footsteps of the Silicon Valley? Indian and Irish software in the international division of labour
This paper analyses the development of software in India and Ireland. The development patterns of... more This paper analyses the development of software in India and Ireland. The development patterns of the software industry in Ireland and India clearly show both the advantages and disadvantages of being a follower. The most obvious advantage is the ability to sustain growth without a broad based set of technical capabilities, at least initially. With the leaders creating and defining markets, and possibly even the business models, and the policy and technical infrastructure required, many uncertainties are greatly reduced. Moreover, in many instances, multinationals from the leading countries can catalyse growth and may even, as in Ireland, account for a substantial part of the initial growth. On the other hand, relatively narrow sources of competitive advantage imply that the firms in the follower industries tend to be similar in capabilities, with competition among them transferring the bulk of the benefits to customers overseas. Sophisticated and well established competitors locate...
Industrial Organisation and Innovation
This important book provides a systematic and quantitative analysis of the development of the sof... more This important book provides a systematic and quantitative analysis of the development of the software industry: the major growth industry in advanced economies of the world. It presents the results of a comprehensive set of industry surveys to shed light on the differences in specialization and performance of US and European software firms.
European Management Review, 2017
Competitive dynamics theory suggests that rival firms imitate other competing firms with similar ... more Competitive dynamics theory suggests that rival firms imitate other competing firms with similar resources to maintain competitive parity while are likely to differentiate from the market leader to avoid its dangerous retaliation. According to neo-institutional theory, in highly uncertain environments, rivals are likely to imitate the market leader because they assume it possesses superior market knowledge. Combining these two lines of argument, we argue that a rival's decision whether to follow or run away from the market leader depends on environmental uncertainty and market leadership, the latter expressing the extent to which the market leader owns a larger market share vis-à-vis the other rivals. The empirical analysis relies on data about the product line strategies of 66 mobile phone vendors in the 1994-2010 period. The results show that when environmental uncertainty is low, the relationship between a firm's market leadership and imitation by its rivals is negative, whereas in conditions of high environmental uncertainty, imitation of the market leader increases with its market leadership.
This paper focuses on cross-licensing, a strategy which earlier studies have found to be adopted ... more This paper focuses on cross-licensing, a strategy which earlier studies have found to be adopted especially by holders of large patent portfolios operating in complex products industries like computers, semiconductors and electronics (Cohen, Nelson and Walsh, 2000; Grindley and Teece 1997). We analyze the association between the importance of cross-licensing as a motivation for patenting and a series of variables that account for key characteristics of the patent, the patent holder and the technology. More precisely, we hypothesize that cross-licensing is associated with the cumulativeness of patented inventions and the number of overlapping claims with other patents. Moreover, we expect that cross licensing is positively associated with concentration and complexity of the main technological field of the patent. Finally, we test the hypothesis that intensity of competition in the technological space is positively associated with cross-licensing. We test these hypotheses by using the...
Industrial Organization and Innovation : An International Study of the Software Industry
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2001
This paper estimates the determinants of labour productivity in European NUTS regions during 1989... more This paper estimates the determinants of labour productivity in European NUTS regions during 1989-1996. Unlike previous studies, which have focussed either on local technological capabilities or on agglomeration economies, we compare three potential explanations of regional advantages: Technological capabilities (proxied by regional patents), agglomeration economies (employment density), and openness. To study the latter we use a new measure, the number of airplane passengers embarked and disembarked in the region, and found that in spite of some limitations, this is a meaningful index for the openness of the regions and possibly of other locations (e.g. cities). By using instrumental variables, we confirm existing results that patents and employment density affect labour productivity. Our novel finding is that openness affects labour productivity as well.
Acknowledgments: We thank Jim Bessen, Hélène Dernis, Megan MacGarvie, Paola Giuri, Myriam Mariani... more Acknowledgments: We thank Jim Bessen, Hélène Dernis, Megan MacGarvie, Paola Giuri, Myriam Mariani, Kazu Motohashi, Teruo Okazaki, James Rollinson, Philipp Sander, Georg Van Graevenitz, Stephan Wagner, Norihiko Yamano, Maria Pluvia Zuniga, and all the participants at the PATSTAT Users’ Meeting in Paris in March 2008 and seminars,at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München,and “L. Bocconi” University in Milan for very fruitful discussions during
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Papers by Salvatore Torrisi