Knowledge flows, firms' competencies, and patent citations: an analysis of the trajectory of IBM

In a knowledge economy, the creation, distribution and use of knowledge become decisive factors to reinforce firms' competitiveness. At the firm level, the process of innovation involves, fundamentally, the creation of new knowledge, which implies the integration and recombination of existing knowledge that may come from different sources and locations. The analytical difficulties to deal with this subject generate a literature that tries to quantify and analyze knowledge flows between economic agents using patent citations. Those citations may provide clues for intra and inter-firms knowledge flows. The paper analyses information about patents granted by IBM in the USPTO, which is used to map knowledge flows and to correlate these flows with the evolution of IBM competences and growth strategies.