A cross‐cultural analysis of intellectual asset protection in SMEs
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Purpose This paper aims to examine the effect of national culture on the capacity of small and medium‐sized biotechnology enterprises to protect their intellectual assets by analysing the mediator role of environmental scanning behaviour. The extent to which environmental scanning behaviour helps firms to protect their intellectual assets is investigated, and the effects of national cultural values on environmental scanning behaviour are analysed. Design/methodology/approach The hypotheses are tested with survey data from 123 biotechnology SMEs located in 14 countries. Findings Environmental scanning appears to be an important step in the intellectual property strategy, as it enhances the firm's capacity to protect its intellectual assets. Nevertheless, the results show that firms located in cultures with high uncertainty avoidance, high power distance and low individualism do more scanning, whereas the capacity to protect intellectual assets is perceived as being more important in firms located in cultures with low uncertainty avoidance, low power distance and high individualism. Research limitations/implications Certain limitations should be noted. For instance, the research is based on cross‐sectional data, which provide limited insight into the temporal aspects of dynamic environments. Practical implications The study has important implications for practitioners. It demonstrates that, in international working relationships, cultural values have a direct effect on environmental scanning behaviour, and hence an indirect effect on intellectual property (IP) protection capability. Given the strategic importance of scanning and IP for innovative firms, the results could help managers to make strategic decisions, specifically in R&D internationalization through decentralization or partnership. Originality/value Although few studies have empirically analysed the role of environmental scanning in a particular domain, such as intellectual property strategic management, or adopted a comparative cross‐cultural design to do so, this paper investigates the role of environmental scanning in intellectual property strategy from a cross‐cultural perspective.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.009 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".