Knowledge Search Strategies in the Biotechnology Domain: A Patent Benchmarking Analysis

This paper offers a new interpretive perspective to investigate factors of researchers productivity, moving from a personal features/resource endowment view to a behavioral one centered on the knowledge search. Little work has indeed been carried out on the relationship between the research productivity and the scientist knowledge search behaviors. Three knowledge search dimensions are taken in account: search type, search focus and search dynamics. Using data relative to 873 biotechnology patents granted from 1960 to 2007 to 255 academic scholars that are affiliated to 36 Italian universities, this paper investigates if a particular knowledge search behavior is associated to greater patenting rates.