Innovation paths: how the intra-firm evolution of technological innovations affects innovation search and innovation impact

摘要

We explore how the evolution of a firm's technological innovations affects subsequent innovation search and innovation impact. We define the construct of an innovation path - a series of innovations that share fundamental knowledge and inventors. We suggest that the firm's technological innovations can coalesce along innovation paths, and that firms vary in their technological evolution on the two dimensions of innovation path persistence and pervasiveness. We hypothesise that innovation paths highly developed along these two dimensions cause the firm to emphasise search depth over search breadth and negatively affect the impact of a firm's subsequent portfolio of innovations. Empirical results using patent data from a sample of 455 US firms corroborate our theory.