Scientific revealing and firm product pioneering with an emerging fiber optics technology

This article extends research in the resource-based tradition by examining the value of commercial scientific revealing as a mechanism of scientific reputation building affecting product pioneering with an emerging technology. Developing the mechanisms supporting when and how scientific reputation acts as a valuable and difficult-to-imitate asset, we explain the “empirical anomalies” associated with firms purposefully participating in knowledge revealing strategies, even though by doing so they lose appropriation claim on the revealed knowledge. Using data from the early stages of fiber optics technology development (1976-1994) in the U.S. this study draws a nuanced picture of the relationship between scientific revealing and product pioneering. We find that (1) the value of scientific revealing differs for firms commercializing the emerging technology through one commercial entity versus multiple entities; (2) in the corporate setting, superior scientific revealing by a commercial entity compared to its ...