Investimenti in R&S, brevetti e valore di mercato dell'impresa: analisi dell'evidenza empirica ed implicazioni per gli studi sull'innovazione aziendale

Investimenti in R&S, brevetti e valore di mercato dell'impresa: analisi dell'evidenza empirica ed implicazioni per gli studi sull'innovazione aziendale (di Raffaele Oriani) - ABSTRACT: Strategic literature has extensively recognized the importance of R&D-related assets for the firm?s success in the long run. However, in spite of the growing attention to the role of R&D activity, we are still lacking satisfactory methods to assess its economic value. Indeed, the valuation of technological assets is complicated by several difficulties related to both the very nature of the knowledge generated through the R&D investments and the uncertainty connected to the subsequent technology commercialization. This shortcoming affects several important funding decisions inside and outside the firm. However, a stream of empirical literature drawing from the fields of industrial organization and financial economics has extensively coped with the questions concerning the valuation of firms? innovation activities by the financial markets. In this respect, several different estimation methodologies, data sources and variables have been adopted. The objective of this article is to review the methods and the results of these studies in a systematic way and suggest the potential contributions they can provide to the literature on the management of innovation. In the conclusions, this article also highlights the main insights that the empirical literature reviewed could gain from the firm-level studies on the determinants of innovation performance.