Lone Inventors and Technological Novelty

• According to extant studies, single and independent inventors have a lower probability of creating breakthrough inventions than teams and organizations. Scholars have, however, in recent years highlighted the need to distinguish between inventions’ novelty and value or technological impact, rather than treat the former as an inherent dimension of the latter. At the same time, there is a long tradition of research on brainstorming and group creativity asserting that collaboration in teams, or similarly in organizations, is associated with less novel outcomes, as opposed to individuals working alone. This paper accordingly explores the relationship between lone inventors and the likelihood of generating technological novelty, as compared to inventors working alone and/or in organizations. This paper provides the first systematic and large-scale study of this topic, by analyzing all U.S. patents applied for between 1986 and 2010. The findings suggest that both independent and single inventors have an advantage when it comes to novelty generation compared to collaboration in teams and/or organizations. The results also indicate that the technological complexity of the invention moderates the studied relationships; Single and independent inventors lose their relatively higher probability of generating technological novelty under higher complexity. The paper contributes to the understanding of the role of lone inventors in innovation, as well as to the antecedents of technological novelty.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv -- Företagsekonomi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business -- Business Administration (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Annan samhällsvetenskap -- Övrig annan samhällsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Other Social Sciences -- Other Social Sciences not elsewhere specified (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business (hsv//eng)

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