Networks and Knowledge Production: Collaboration and Patenting in Biotechnology

Abstract

We examine the link between social capital and intellectual output in the context of the biotechnology industry, a knowledge-intensive and expanding field. Due to a range of economic, social, and scientific factors, interorganizational collaboration is commonplace in the industry. Staying on top of fast-breaking research developments is critical, thus patents are an important indicator of intellectual output and property. But patents also provide a signal to organizational partners that a dedicated biotechnology firm (DBF) is a worthy collaborator, in effect providing a basis for building collaborative capital. We argue that collaborative capital will lead to patents and that this intellectual capital leads to subsequent collaboration, finding support for these claims. More centrally connected DBFs subsequently produce more patents; and DBFs with more patents subsequently become more centrally connected. Additionally, we look at the types of patents held, focusing on the effects of principle (the most intellectually broad) patents. DBFs with more principle patents become more centrally connected, and come to have more total patents. Firms rich in collaborative capital have greater opportunities for producing ideas with potential for timely payoff. We suggest that patents are a generative form of intellectual capital which provide scientific visibility that further enhances a firm’s collaborative social capital.