The technological uniqueness paradox

Deskripsi

We establish a new paradox surrounding technological uniqueness, defined as the degree to which a firm's patented technology portfolio differs from its competitors. On the one hand, technological uniqueness acts as a barrier to incoming technology spillovers and impedes firm performance. On the other hand, technological uniqueness reduces outgoing technology spillovers and contributes to a strategic resource that is more costly to imitate. We empirically examine these competing arguments and find evidence that the strategic resource argument dominates for average firms in the data with more technologically unique firms performing better. At the same time, we show that pursuing technological uniqueness is costly, as unique firms indeed benefit less from incoming technology spillovers, are harder to understand by equity analysts and have higher costs of equity capital.