Patents Statistics, Knowledge Specialisation and the Organisation of Competencies

This paper presents a method by which patent statistics can be used to study the organisation of competencies within firm. We argue that knowledge is heterogeneous because it refers to scientific disciplines and technologies. One must therefore account for how technologies relate to one another -what we call the organisation of competencies. Patents are used to develop a methodological framework allowing one to grasp technological relatedness within firms. We then propose a series of illustrations showing how patent statistics can be used to study inter-firm heterogeneity and the relationship between the organisation of knowledge and economic performance at the firm level.