Seminar by Prof. Michael Bikard, London Business School
Event details
| Date | 26.10.2018 |
| Hour | 14:00 › 15:30 |
| Speaker | Prof. Michael Bikard, London Business School |
| Location | |
| Category | Conferences - Seminars |
"Hubs as lampposts: Academic location and firms’ attention to science"
Abstract
Only a small fraction of the myriad of academic papers published every year emerges from industry hubs, but firms pay disproportionately more attention to those papers. We examine this disparity and explore some of its causes. To do so, we analyze firms’ patent citations to over 10 million academic publications as well as to a set of 147 simultaneous discoveries from academia. Our results highlights two main explanations for hubs’ apparent “lamppost” effect. First, there are considerable differences in the nature of academic science produced inside and outside of hubs. Hub-based academic science is on average of higher quality but surprisingly only slightly more applied than academic science produced elsewhere. Second, and perhaps more importantly, firms face important constraints in allocating their limited attention to an academic literature that is vast, complex and often unreliable. They are likely to pay greater attention to hub-based academic science both because they expect it to be more useful on average, and because they are more likely to be exposed to it through the informal interactions that take place in hubs. Overall, our results suggest that hubs amplify the reach of local academic science. They are likely to drive non-localized knowledge flows by attracting the attention of firms located hundreds of miles away.
Abstract
Only a small fraction of the myriad of academic papers published every year emerges from industry hubs, but firms pay disproportionately more attention to those papers. We examine this disparity and explore some of its causes. To do so, we analyze firms’ patent citations to over 10 million academic publications as well as to a set of 147 simultaneous discoveries from academia. Our results highlights two main explanations for hubs’ apparent “lamppost” effect. First, there are considerable differences in the nature of academic science produced inside and outside of hubs. Hub-based academic science is on average of higher quality but surprisingly only slightly more applied than academic science produced elsewhere. Second, and perhaps more importantly, firms face important constraints in allocating their limited attention to an academic literature that is vast, complex and often unreliable. They are likely to pay greater attention to hub-based academic science both because they expect it to be more useful on average, and because they are more likely to be exposed to it through the informal interactions that take place in hubs. Overall, our results suggest that hubs amplify the reach of local academic science. They are likely to drive non-localized knowledge flows by attracting the attention of firms located hundreds of miles away.
Practical information
- General public
- Free