A longitudinal study of the factors that affect firms' ability to shape technological evolution and to exert a broad influence on technological change

Abstract

[…] Τhe main objective of this study is to provide insight into the firm level factors that may affect a firm’s ability to influence technological evolution and to create broadly useful technological inventions. In addition, in the context of this thesis, we will examine if these two specific abilities can have an impact on the firm’s financial performance. In particular, we will explore if the degree of a firm’s technological influence is related to the degree of its financial success, adding to this specific but limited literature, and, moreover, we will analyze the relation between the breadth of impact and the financial performance, an issue on which the extant literature, to our knowledge, does not offer any empirical evidence. Thus, the secondary objective of this study is to examine whether the firm’s ability to develop influential inventions in general, or inventions of high breadth of impact in specific, can have a positive impact on its financial performance. […]