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Prior research has confirmed the usefulness of both formal and informal protection mechanisms for governing knowledge flows. However, there is lack of research on the motivation and needs driving firms in their choice of mechanisms for each situation. The aim of this paper is to examine the reasons for choosing formal or informal mechanisms.

The hypotheses were tested on a sample of 209 companies engaged in R&D. A Partial Least Squares was used for the analyses.

This study identifies statistically significant relationships between the protection need and the firm's strategy. The results indicate that there is variance in the use of mechanisms when there is a specific motivation for seeking protection, and when the firm faces difficulties related to protection issues.

The data were gathered in a single country. The results may be different if practices in a culture based more on informal relations, with less efficient patent system, were investigated.

The study provides managers with useful information on the informal protection of knowledge and innovations when resources are limited. In particular, it helps them to identify situations in which informal mechanisms are potentially more useful.

This study adds to the literature by studying quantitatively the relationship between the recognised need for protection and the choice of formal and/or informal protection as a strategy. It combines both formal and informal mechanisms. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is one of the few studies examining HRM-related protection mechanisms.

The purpose of this paper is to study how the motivation in firms to safeguard the prerequisites of innovation relates to the strength of the employee-related protection mechanisms that deal with knowledge leaking and knowledge leaving, and the moderating effect of organizational trust in the relationship.

The hypotheses were tested on a sample collected in Finland from 80 companies engaged in R&D. A partial least squares was used for the analyses.

Knowledge leaking and leaving from a firm can be approached with both formalized and soft types of employee-related mechanisms; that the motivation to secure innovativeness positively relates to both forms; and that the presence of organizational trust is especially effective in reinforcing employee-related practices that can prevent knowledge leaving.

The data were gathered in a single western European country and that may have affected the results.

The managers would do well to introduce both formalized and soft forms of protection so as to mitigate the effects of knowledge both leaving and leaking. Building on the findings of this study, managers could prioritize between the different categories and mechanisms depending on the market and industry they operate in.

This study adds to the literature by studying quantitatively the employee-related protection mechanisms and the effect of organizational trust in the usage of those mechanisms.

Collaboration for research and development (R&D) and innovation among various organizations can be beneficial and in some cases even imperative, but in order to realise the potential, effective management is required. Effective innovation requires firms to share their core knowledge, and simultaneously make sure that they will not lose their core knowledge and future competitive advantage. In line with this, this study aims to clarify the role of knowledge protection in relation to collaborative innovation endeavours.

This study approaches the knowledge protection and knowledge sharing issues through a literature review and subsequent empirical analysis of 242 Finnish companies.

The results indicate that when a firm has put effort in getting strong protection at its disposal, sharing knowledge with varying partners is more likely, which, in turn, improves innovation performance of the firm. It is not just about the strength of protection, but also – and even more importantly – using it efficiently that counts.

The data are collected from one country only, with its specific features, and thus further research might reveal more on the studied phenomenon. Also utilising more detailed measures might reveal more.

This study augments both theoretical and managerial perspectives as it discusses a variety of protection mechanisms. In particular, it offers managers a new way of approaching the means of knowledge protection for innovation‐related collaboration.

This study shows that a wide range of knowledge protection mechanisms can be relied on, and that strategic use of these mechanisms improves knowledge sharing and innovation performance.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate pertinent knowledge protection literature. At the same time, however, knowledge protection is often a neglected or underdeveloped area. This is all the more concerning as knowledge protection plays an essential part in preserving an organization’s competitive advantage. Despite the recognition of this issue by scholars, the knowledge management literature has so far tended to concentrate on the facilitation of knowledge sharing rather than on knowledge protection.

In this paper, the authors present the results of a structured literature review undertaken to investigate the current state of research on knowledge protection. The paper identifies core domains in knowledge protection literature, discusses theoretical perspectives and research methods, sheds light on the role of the information technology (IT) artefact in knowledge protection research and develops a portfolio of knowledge protection measures.

In this paper, 48 papers were analyzed by taking five analytical dimensions into account: research domains, research methods and models, the role of the IT artefact, theoretical views and measures to enforce knowledge protection. Based on the discussion of the results, promising avenues for further research were identified and a research agenda was proposed. The authors argued for more research on the protection of tacit knowledge, more in-depth empirical investigations, more research on IT support and a stronger consideration of theories in knowledge protection research, as well as research on how organizations could build a strategy of knowledge protection.

Tacit knowledge, as well as informal alliances or (social) networks, is under-researched so far. Knowledge protection phenomena need to be investigated in depth to test the assumptions stated in many conceptual papers. IT artefacts should be developed and evaluated. More theory-based research and overarching frameworks or strategies for knowledge protection need to be developed.

In this paper, a portfolio of knowledge protection measures was developed, which might be of particular interest for practitioners. Further, the paper provides a good overview of the current state of practice regarding knowledge protection.

So far, there is no structured literature available focussing on the topic of knowledge protection.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the issue of knowledge protection in knowledge‐intensive business services (KIBS). In particular, it addresses four research questions: do KIBS firms perceive the necessity to protect their knowledge? If so, do they protect it? What method (or combinations of methods) they typically use? What are the main factors affecting the approaches to knowledge protection adopted by these companies?

The paper illustrates and discusses the findings of a survey of 471 KIBS companies located in the Northeast of Italy and operating in three different sectors: IT Services, Design and Communication, Professional Services.

The study classifies the types of knowledge protection mechanisms and investigates similarities and differences in knowledge protection between KIBS operating in distinct sectors, having different size, and pursuing different knowledge management strategies.

The outcomes of the investigation can have some important implications from a managerial viewpoint. In particular, the study provides food for though to both CEOs of KIBS companies regarding the mechanisms of knowledge protection, and to policy makers about the possible public policies that may help companies to protect their competitive knowledge capital without hindering their networks of interaction.

The issue of knowledge protection is relatively new in the literature of KIBS, and findings are quite controversial. In particular, the state‐of‐the‐art research shows that there are some important gaps that the paper tries to fill.

Trust and control through contracting have been juxtaposed in many studies addressing interorganizational collaboration and knowledge exchange. In this study, the authors move from the opposite ends of a continuum between trust as an attitude and control exercised through formal contracts toward the center of the continuum where trust and contracting start to show similar features. The authors ask how trust in its analytical form and control gained through establishing informal protection for knowledge assets affect the innovation and market performance of firms engaged in research and development (R&D) alliances.

The authors examine the existing literature and conduct a quantitative empirical study to answer the research question.

The authors find, first, that controlling an organization’s own knowledge assets in R&D alliances with informal means of protection can be more effective than a strategy of controlling the alliance through formal contracts. Second, the authors find that an analytical audit of partner trustworthiness, and especially partner capabilities and goodwill can be more effective than trust as an attitude.

The findings support softening the sharp distinction between trust and control and provide evidence on the relevance of highlighting the firm point of view in knowledge management in R&D alliance governance.

The study adds to the existing understanding of trust and control in R&D alliance governance. Specifically, the authors turn the focus from interorganizational governance to intra-organizational knowledge management measures, and particularly toward how a focal actor can take an analytical approach to evaluate partner trustworthiness and use informal control in protecting its own knowledge assets. Consequently, this study also provides a plausible explanation for the contradictory findings in studies that examine the relationship between trust and control. The study indicates that depending on the specific nature of trust and control, they can be either a complement or a supplement factors: the extreme forms of trust and control are notably different from those forms that share similar features.

Firms need to constantly renew themselves to keep up with the pace of competition and proactively establish innovations to the markets. This requires capabilities in learning and renewing of the firm’s knowledge base, conceptualized as renewal capital of the firm. On the other hand, firms that acquire high levels of competitiveness by renewing their knowledge base also need to protect that knowledge from unwanted spillovers. This study aims to examine how renewal capital affects incremental and radical innovation performance of the firm, moderated by the firm’s protection of its strategic knowledge.

The study is based on a multi-industry survey study with a time-lagged data set, with independent variables collected in the first wave, followed by a second wave four years later for the dependent variables. The authors test the hypotheses using partial least squares structural equation modeling.

The authors find that firms’ renewal capital is positively associated with the level of incremental and radical innovation. Furthermore, the authors find that knowledge protection negatively moderates the relationship between renewal capital and incremental innovation performance of the firm. In case of radical innovation performance, similar moderating effect is not statistically supported.

With a time-lagged research design, this study study reveals the interdependent roles of renewal capital and knowledge protection for firm’s innovation performance, and provides insights of when (and when not) it would be beneficial for a firm to seek renewal and protective oriented approaches.

This paper aims to uncover the combinations of knowledge sharing mechanisms that organizations in a science and technology park in Brazil use to share managerial and technical knowledge.

This research adopts a qualitative approach that uses a fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis to analyze data that are gathered from 51 managers of organizations in a science and technology park.

The results show that knowledge sharing happens regardless of the type of knowledge. There are more alternative paths that lead to knowledge sharing than to its absence. Regarding the type of knowledge shared, there are more alternative configurations that lead to managerial knowledge sharing than to technical knowledge sharing. Only the older organizations in the science and technology park abstain from knowledge sharing.

Due to the qualitative nature of the study, no generalization is possible. Additionally, the study’s limitation is that it involves organizations from a single science and technology park.

The results offer managers of organizations in science and technology parks to choose from alternative combinations of mechanisms to either boost their knowledge sharing or to promote knowledge protection.

The paper provides an original contribution by identifying the combinations of mechanisms that organizations in a science and technology park use that leads to the sharing of specific knowledge types. The findings also identify the combination of mechanisms that older organizations use that prevents them from sharing knowledge.

Human resources in knowledge intensive industries create the basis for continuing innovation and subsequent firm performance. At the same time, they pose risks for the competitiveness of the firm: unwanted leaking of knowledge and intellectual capital to outsiders exposes firm-critical knowledge, and knowledge leaving with a departing key employee may jeopardise the firm’s projects. The purpose of this paper is to examine how human resource management can serve as a protection mechanism to diminish knowledge leaking and leaving via employees.

The authors approach these issues through a case study utilising interview data from 22 interviews within two large research and development intensive firms.

Human resources could be seen both as a strength and weakness of a firm with respect to knowledge protection. The findings indicate that there are numerous practices related to commitment, trust, motivation, and sense of responsibility available to deploy to strengthen loyalty and to improve preservation of intellectual capital.

While human resources management aspects have been widely discussed with regard job profitability and efficiency in generating intellectual capital, their connection to knowledge protection has often been overlooked. This study aims to contribute to this area.

Drawing upon insights from knowledge-based theory and the learning perspective, this study aims to explore safeguarding strategies in open innovation. Geographic diversity and collaborative breadth can effectively protect proprietary innovations that limit knowledge leakage concerns.

Using a cross-industry sample from the Taiwanese Technological Innovation Survey III, which covered 1,519 firms, the authors investigate the conditions under which partnership portfolios affect radical innovation.

The findings suggest that the partnership portfolio has an inverted U-shaped influence on radical innovation and that this relationship is moderated by geographic diversity and collaborative breadth. This work identifies a balance in the tension between diverse partnership portfolios and knowledge leakage with regard to open innovation activities.

This study provides senior managers with an indication of the relationships between partnership portfolios and innovative knowledge protection, identifying the geographic diversity and collaborative breadth that serve as safeguards to prevent leakages of a firm’s innovative knowledge.

This study makes an original contribution to the empirical exploration of innovation knowledge protection and provides new insights into the field of open innovation. The authors, thus, balance the tension between partnership portfolios and knowledge leakage.