Open Knowledge Disclosure: A Review and Prospects

Liu Ziyu; Du Yushen

doi:doi:10.16538/j.cnki.fem.20220622.402

Summary

Traditional innovation economics holds that the free disclosure of innovation achievements by enterprises is a kind of irrational behavior because it dramatically weakens the excess profits brought by knowledge monopoly and puts enterprises in a disadvantageous position in competition. Counterintuitively, more and more profit-oriented enterprises are disclosing their innovation achievements free of charge. This phenomenon called “open knowledge disclosure” has aroused the widespread interest of scholars.

Based on the CiteSpace bibliometric analysis, this paper summarizes the relevant concepts, driving factors, usual channels and economic effects of open knowledge disclosure. The conclusions include that: First, open knowledge disclosure has the characteristics of voluntary, free and open, significantly different from the connotation of knowledge spillover, knowledge sharing and open science. Second, the driving factors of open knowledge disclosure include internal and external factors. The former includes basic characteristics, R&D characteristics and strategic objectives, and the latter includes macro-environmental characteristics, industry characteristics and collaborative R&D relationships. Third, the usual channels of open knowledge disclosure include academic journals and conference proceedings. Existing research sometimes regards open source software and some particular patents as the channels of open knowledge disclosure. Fourth, this paper divides the economic effect of open knowledge disclosure into two categories: research from the perspective of PFI theory and research from the perspective of signaling theory. The former holds that open knowledge disclosure can prevent competitors from obtaining patents, promote product demand, achieve compatibility with complementary products, and affect technical standards, while the latter believes that enterprises can accumulate technical reputation, acquire external knowledge, and cultivate industrial environments through open knowledge disclosure.

This paper proposes the following prospects: First, future research should focus on emerging open knowledge disclosure channels such as the Internet and patents, and explore their differences and connections with traditional channels such as academic papers in terms of driving factors and economic effect, so as to expand the scope of research and solve cutting-edge problems. Second, empirical research based on promoting the perfection of the theoretical system of open knowledge disclosure should become the primary paradigm of future research. Third, future research should analyze the synergy between open knowledge disclosure and other appropriation strategies, guiding enterprises to obtain innovation profits more efficiently while expanding the theoretical depth. Fourth, future research should pay attention to open knowledge disclosure in China to provide more practical decision-making references for enterprise managers and expand the theoretical horizon.