Mapping Patent Usage in Management Research: The State of Prior Art

Abstract

Patents play an important, and increasingly influential, role in management scholarship. In this study, we conduct a broad and systematic review of patent-based empirical work in the management field, which involves mapping the ways in which scholars are using patent-based measures to represent concepts and assessing this usage based on measurement principles. With respect to mapping, our review identifies the different types of measures that researchers have constructed based on different types of patent data (e.g., patent counts, backward citations) as well as delineates the classes of theoretical concepts that are being represented by those measures. In terms of assessing, as a complement to prior surveys of patent-based research that have assessed patents as indicators based on features of patents, patenting, and patent offices, we develop a framework that is based on measurement principles. Using this framework, our assessment of patent-based research in management reveals important patterns surrounding foundational measurement issues, i.e., method bias, validation threats, model misspecification. Our review makes two core contributions: one centering on summarizing how patents have been used in management research and one focusing on guiding management scholars in terms of common measurement issues for patent-based indicators. These contributions have important implications for future scholarly work in management.