Unlocking Value through IP Governance: The Role of Social Capital

The aim of this paper is to examine how social capital (or the lack of it) affects the way companies govern their patents (whether they license in, license out, cross license or engage patents in patent pools). In order to do so patent strategies of 31 companies who use different patent governance structures were examined. The research findings suggest that both governance structures and social capital play an important role in the value creation from patents.