Linking the Firm’s Internal Innovation Context with Commercialization Choices

This paper investigates the linkages between the firm’s internal innovation context and how the innovation is commercialized (by the firm itself or an external third party). By analyzing these linkages at the level of the individual innovation, we add to the literature on how firms profit from R&D. We base our study on original survey data comprising 3,773 commercialized innovations from 23 countries in all major industries. We find that three aspects of the innovation context - external knowledge inputs, encouragement of creativity, and high autonomy - are positively related to external commercialization. Sufficient resources are negatively related to external commercialization.