R&D intensity and commercialization orientation effects on financial performance

This paper investigates how technology-based firms deploy their R&D and marketing resources for commercializing their technology assets. Specifically, we examine the main effects of R&D intensity, knowledge stocks, and commercialization orientation on firm performance as well as the interaction effects among the above variables. The US patent and financial data of 258 US-based technology public firms were collected and integrated as the empirical base for testing the hypotheses. Our results suggest that firms in different technology categories should have different technology commercialization strategies. Commercialization orientation and R&D intensity complement each other. A firm's commercialization orientation can play a more important role than R&D in the process of exploiting the value of technology assets. The commercialization of a firm's technology assets, including knowledge flows and knowledge stocks, is a complex task and there is no single best strategy available for all firms. (c) 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.