Despite technological inventions being a key input to new product development, companies often struggle with commercializing new technologies via the product development route. Drawing on a sample of publicly traded U.S. manufacturing companies that spans the period 1992-2013, our study shows that CEOs play a catalytic role in the technology conversion process, but this role is highly nuanced and depends on the characteristics (generalist vs. specialist) of their human capital. Specifically, generalist CEOs tend to be better at facilitating the conversion process in companies with more diverse and/or higher quality inventions.In contrast, specialist CEOs play a catalytic role in technology conversion when companies have less diverse and/or lower quality inventions. Hence, our paper offers a solution to the technology conversion problem that consists in aligning CEO human capital characteristics with the characteristics of the company's inventions portfolio.

This paper represents an early attempt to develop an integrated framework linking empirical studies that make use of trademark statistics. Despite its youth, this field of scholarly activity has already accumulated a critical mass of papers that allow us to draw first general conclusions about the trademark lifecycle and its impact on organisational functioning. Based on a systematic review of 64 articles with some elements of empirical trademark analysis, five broad research areas have been identified, namely: the determinants of trademark deposits; the relationship between trademarks and innovation processes; the role of trademarks in differentiating product offerings; the strategic use of trademarks; and the impact of trademarks on firm performance. Within each category, a more detailed aggregation of articles has also been proposed. Overall, the analysis has shown that the performance-based perspective currently dominates the research landscape, with studies on trademark deposits and the trademark-innovation link to follow. At the same time, there is still little known about micro-foundations of a company's trademarking behaviour; the use of trademarks and other intellectual property rights in a complementary way and its effect on value transference; as well as the performance implications of differentiation strategy. This paper considers these and other findings to outline directions for future research.

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This paper examines the determinants of participation of R&D-intensive firms in standards development. Using data on R&D spending, patent, and trademark activities of the world's largest corporate R&D investors and their membership of standards organizations, we find a highly robust positive association between a firm's R&D spending and its participation in standards development. However, the causal effect of R&D spending on membership of standards organizations is conditional upon the firm's patent and/or product-market position, and varies across different types of standards organizations. More specifically, a strong patent position amplifies the effect of R&D spending on participation in standards-developing organizations, while a strong product-market position strengthens the impact of R&D spending on participation in the organizations that promote established standards. Finally, we also show that policy changes that increase the value of patents, such as variations in the preferential tax treatment of patent-related revenue, induce R&D-intensive firms to intensify their participation in standards organizations.