Mind the gap: Capturing value from basic research through combining mobile inventors and partnerships

To successfully generate more valuable technologies from accessing basic research knowledge, firms need to combine institutional and individual level bridges to universities and research institutes active in basic research. This combination is particularly important when the new technology builds on scientific prior art. While mobile inventors are needed to transfer and translate basic knowledge into new technologies, partnerships provide the commitment, resources and incentive structure to integrate this basic research knowledge more effectively into the firm’s innovation process, thus improving the value capture from mobile inventors. Our findings in the micro-electronics field illustrate the importance of jointly accounting for firm and inventor level industry-science links to assess their effectiveness and provides evidence on complementarity from using both. Furthermore, identifying the scientific nature of the technology projects critically determines whether the combination of these links allow to capture more value.