Markets for Technology and their Implications for Corporate Strategy

Although market transactions for technologies, ideas, knowledge or information are limited by several well-known imperfections, there is evidence that they have become more common than in the past. In this paper we analyze how the presence of markets for technology conditions the technology and corporate strategy of firms. The first and most obvious implication is that markets for technology increase the strategy space: firms can choose to license in the technology instead of developing it in-house or they can choose to license out their technology instead of (or in addition to) investing in the downstream assets needed to manufacture and commercialize the goods. The implications for management include more proactive management of intellectual property, greater attention to external monitoring of technologies, and organizational changes to support technology licensing, joint-ventures and acquisition of external technology. For entrepreneurial startups, markets for technology make a focused business model more attractive. At the industry level, markets for technology may lower barriers to entry and increase competition, with important implications for the firms' broader strategy as well.