Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/43528 
Year of Publication: 
2010
Series/Report no.: 
Nota di Lavoro No. 2010,47
Publisher: 
Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM), Milano
Abstract: 
Novel early stage ideas face uncertainty on the expertise needed to elaborate them, which creates a need to circulate them widely to find a match. Yet as information is not excludable, shared ideas may be stolen, reducing incentives to innovate. Still, in idea-rich environments inventors may share them without contractual protection. Idea density is enhanced by firms ensuring rewards to inventors, while their legal boundaries limit idea leakage. As firms limit idea circulation, the innovative environment involves a symbiotic interaction: firms incubate ideas and allow employees to leave if they cannot find an internal fit; markets allow for wide circulation of ideas until matched and completed; under certain circumstances ideas may be even developed in both firms and markets.
Subjects: 
Ideas
Innovation
Entrepreneurship
Firm Organization
Start-Ups
JEL: 
D83
L22
M13
O31
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.