From Appropriability To Legitimacy:Intellectual Property Governance In Clusters

In the context of industrial clusters,with the flattening of information communication paths and the lower-cost of knowledge spillover,Enterprises,benefited from a high degree of proximity of geography,institution and cognition within an industrial cluster,could predominate over external economy of knowledge spillover and low transaction cost.However,the diversified forms of knowledge interaction(chain production,cooperative R&D,etc.)and the increasing frequency of personnel mobility have exacerbated of "Free-Riding" behaviors,imitations and torts.The national Intellectual Property Rights Regime alone cannot effectively protect intellectual property of enterprises.Once an innovative product is launched on the market,peer competitors would imitate it or even copy it to get a slice of the market share at a lower cost.Owners of innovative products can hardly get corresponding return,or worse,they would be stuck in an embarrassing situation of "seeking their funeral by innovation".All these problems have dampened enthusiasm of innovation-driven enterprises to spend more on R&D.Finally,they would join the crowd of imitation,thus plunging the whole industrial cluster into a vicious circle of "imitation".Therefore,enterprises need to cover the absence of the existing institution through their own strategic actions and govern the intellectual property of individual enterprises effectively.The local intellectual property governance system of the cluster has effectively covered the absence of the national Intellectual Property Rights Regime of the patent and so on,and has successfully normalized the behavior of the cluster enterprises.However,these effective efforts are still scattered now.Under this condition,systematic and theoretical exploration is necessary to examine a rational,effective intellectual property governance mechanism of enterprises in an industrial cluster,and its influence on the local institutional design.That's "where the institution comes from?"Concerning the above problems and shortages of theoretical development,this research focus on the question "what should innovation-driven enterprises do to govern intellectual property in the context of industrial cluster"?The theoretical framework of corporate intellectual property governance is based on the context of industrial cluster.Based on the theoretical framework,intellectual property governance of enterprises within an industrial cluster and its functioning mechanism are examined.First,this research systematically reviewed findings about intellectual property governance,theory of appropriability and institutional theories from the perspective of theoretical evolution.Second,based on the survey data of 526 valid questionnaire,the structural equation model and the multiple regression model,the effects of intellectual property protection on intellectual property governance of enterprises in an industrial cluster were verified from the perspective of appropriability.Third,five industrial clusters in Zhejiang Province are adopted as research objects.The exploratory multi-case research method is used to propose,from the perspective of appropriability and legitimacy,a new logic framework,namely "intellectual property governance of clustered enterprises—pressure of innovation legitimacy—governance performance",which is benefited from innovation.Fourth,from the perspective of legitimacy,based on the data obtained from the 526 valid reponses,with the integrated application of the structural equation model and the multiple regression model,the essay systematically analyzes the mutual influence among intellectual property governance of clustered enterprises,legitimacy pressure and corporation governance,especially the mediating effect of legitimacy pressure between intellectual property governance and innovation.Finally,based on dynamic view,based on the relative theories,Tonglu Pen Manufacturing Industrial Cluster in Zhejiang is taken as a case to longitudinally explore typical models and evolutionary process of corporate intellectual property governance,and to dig the institutional factors and evolution process behind.Based on the above analyses and discussions,this research mainly comes to the following four conclusions:(1)intellectual property governance of enterprises in cluster fields is a whole set of institutional arrangement to encourage and restrict enterprises' innovation activities.It also contains property protection based on the principle of appropriability as well as Community Norm and Local Regulations which are based on legitimacy.By coordinating the legitimacy pressure perceived by clustered enterprise,it can further influence enterprises' governance of innovation behaviors or imitation behaviors in the context of industrial clusters;(2)in the context of industrial clusters,the effect of "Property Protection" on corporate intellectual property governance is limited."Community Norm" and "Local Regulations" constitute important supplementations to corporate intellectual property governance institutional arrangement.Meanwhile,the "Local Regulations" plays a more important role in reducing enterprises' imitation behaviors;while the "Community Norm" is more effective in boosting enterprises' willingness of innovation;(3)under the context of industrial clusters,the "legitimacy pressure" has a mediating effect on corporate intellectual property governance;(4)from the dynamic perspective,absence of property protection based on the appropriability mechanism can plunge the whole industrial cluster into a vicious circle of "imitation".Considering this problem,institutional entrepreneurship strategies,including "horizontal integration" and "vertical integration",can be adopted to actively redefine and strengthen the institutional boundary of the field,resulting in the evolution of the corporate intellectual property governance model to a degree of "non-imitation" or even to "enthusiasm of innovation".The theoretical contributions of this paper can be mainly reflected in the following three aspects:(1)promoting the boundary convergence and theoretical construction of the corporate intellectual property governance research based on the context of industrial clusters;(2)expanding the logic framework of "Profiting from Innovation"(PFI)theory from the perspective of appropriability to the perspective of legitimacy;(3)exploring the corporate intellectual property governance evolution mechanism from passive isomorphism to active collective action.Apart from the above theoretical contributions,the findings of this research can also provide beneficial practical inspirations for relevant issues in a cluster,especially for public policy-makers and public service providers:(1)from "innovation support"to "demand-driven motivation":an inspiration for the local government's formulation of supporting policy for the industrial cluster transformation and upgrading;(2)from"existing in name only" to "collective efforts":an inspiration for the industrial association's formulation of supporting standards for the industrial cluster transformation and upgrading;(3)from "fighting alone" to "collective action":an inspiration for the innovation-driven enterprises' formulation of innovative strategies and intellectual property governance strategies.