Exploring the dark side of innovation collaboration: A resource-based perspective

Pursuing an open innovation approach can be a double-edged sword as greater openness may enhance not only a firm’s access to external knowledge, but also its vulnerability to unintended knowledge leakage and imitation by others. In this study, we seek to shed light on this underexplored downside of open innovation. Drawing on the resource-based view, we develop and test a model that specifies how, why, and when open innovation is likely to be associated with the infringement of a firm’s intellectual property (IP). Results from our analysis of 987 German high-tech firms support the assumption that the risk of being infringed by others increases with the number of collaboration partners. Moreover, we find that the use of formal IP protection mechanisms shields the focal firm against collaboration-induced IP infringement, which in turn is negatively related to subsequent changes in firm performance.