Citations to scientific publications: their impact on firm technological outcomes

Previous research appearing in International Journal of Technology Intelligence and Planning and other journals examined issues regarding openness vs. secrecy with scientific information. In particular, this research explored whether companies who are more open with their scientific findings (i.e., publish them in scientific journals) fare better in their innovation outcomes than those who are more secretive. The empirical findings were generally quite supportive of the hypothesised relationships. However, most of these efforts employed total publication counts as the primary predictor variable. The purpose of this current research effort is to extend this research stream by utilising citation-weighted publication counts to further refine the analysis. The findings are that citation analysis adds to the explanatory value of predicting technological outcomes.