How to capture value from linking to science-driven basic research: Boundary crossing inventors and partnerships

Surprisingly little is known about the actual process of how firms engage in accessing and translating science-driven basic knowledge and turning this into improved applied research productivity. We study this process focused around a research corporation in the microelectronics and semiconductor industry. We show that firms which have a partnership with the research organization where at the same time inventors cross from the research organization into the firm develop higher quality technologies drawing on the basic research knowledge from the research organization. These same firms also spend more effort internally developing these initial technologies into more applied technologies capturing more value from these interactions with science-driven basic knowledge.