Patent-based framework for assisting entrepreneurial firms’ R&D partner selection: Leveraging their limited resources and managing the tension between learning and protection

One of the critical attributes for successful R&D collaboration with external organizations is finding appropriate partners. When choosing R&D partners, entrepreneurial firms confront challenges on how to leverage their limited resources and manage the tension between learning and protection. Given those challenges, this study suggests a patent-based framework for helping technology-based entrepreneurial firms select R&D partners. Our framework identifies candidate partners with complementary technological capabilities for an entrepreneurial firm and evaluates candidates by considering both the potential of learning and risk from unintended knowledge spillovers. As a case example, the framework is applied to a firm in the IoT industry.