On the Market: Using Trademarks to Reveal Organizational Assets, Strategies and Capabilities

Firms increasingly rely upon trademarks, but research exploiting trademark data is still rather limited and scattered across research domains. Yet, there is an emerging understanding that trademark data can be used to capture several elements of how, when and to what extent firms bring (new) products and services to the market. This paper integrates existing firm-level empirical studies that use trademarks to operationalize organizational constructs. The review reveals that researchers have used trademark-based indicators to operationalize three distinct sets of organizational constructs: assets, market strategies and capabilities. These both complement and substitute organizational constructs often captured by patents. The paper sketches several avenues for further conceptual research and key data opportunities and challenges.