Excavating the Role of NPEs in the Innovation Process: Turning into a Mission Possible?

Past decades have seen a rise in activities for the commercialisation of intellectual property (IP), particularly by non-practicing or non-producing entities. Publications have weakly discussed their impact on the effectiveness of innovation processes and the development of technology in industrial sectors, the quest of this study. As a first step a systematic literature review retrieved 91 relevant papers, but finds they address ‘the good, the bad and the ugly’ in an almost canonical way. During twelve interviews with experts, it became clear that the canonical classification is too simplistic for modelling. In addition, the array of interventions was larger than originally presumed. These and other findings were used for a focus group of twelve academics. The outcomes confirmed that theory is lacking in the domain of innovation management, particularly with respect to the generation and exploitation of IP. The road to decisive research seems far away: a mission impossible, perhaps.