查看文章

Extensive body of literature shows that prior knowledge and experience acquired by employees within incumbent firms is an important driver of entrepreneurship. The existing research also suggests that startup founders may exploit knowledge that is protected within their prior employers through patents. We ask the question of when does the patented knowledge affects the inventor’s decision to transition to entrepreneurship. To examine this question, we exploit a unique dataset based on the European Patent Survey. We find that the likelihood of employee entrepreneurship increases with the perceived relative value of the patents the individual invented within the incumbent firm, and, decreases with the compensation the inventor received for the patents. We further find that the relationship between the perceived patent value and the inventor’s entrepreneurship decision weakens when the patents are licensed to …