특허생산과 기술성과: 기업 혁신전략의 역할

This study analyzed the effect of corporate innovation strategies on patentproduction and ultimately on technological change and new product development of firmsin South Korea. The intent was to derive efficient strategies for enhancing technologicalperformance of the firms. For the empirical analysis, three sources of data werecombined: four waves of the Human Capital Corporate Panel Survey (HCCP) datacollected by the Korea Research Institute for Vocational Education and Training(KRIVET), corporate financial data obtained from the Korea Information Service (KIS),and corporate patent data provided by the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO). The patent production function was estimated by zero-inflated negative binomial (ZINB)regression. The technological performance function was estimated by two-stageregression, taking into account the endogeneity of patent production. An ordered logitmodel was applied for the second stage regression. Empirical results confirmed the critical role of corporate innovation strategies in patentproduction and in facilitating technological change and new product development of thefirms. In patent production, the firms' R&D investment and human resources were keydeterminants. Higher R&D intensity led to more patents, yet with decreasing marginalproductivity. A larger stock of registered patents also led to a larger flow of new patentproduction. Firms were more prolific in patent production when they had high-qualitypersonnel, intensely investing in human resource development, and adoptingmarket-leading or fast-follower strategy as compared to stability strategy. Intechnological performance, the firms' human resources played a key role in acceleratingtechnological change and new product development. R&D intensity expedited new productdevelopment of the firm. Firms adopting market-leading or fast-follower strategy were atan advantage than those with stability strategy in technological performance. Firms prolific in patent production were also advanced in terms of technological change andnew product development. However, the nexus between patent production andtechnological performance measures was substantially reduced when controlling for theendogeneity of patent production. These results suggest that firms need to strengthen thelinkage between patent production and technological performance, and take strategies thataddress each firm's capacities and needs.