External knowledge sourcing and involvement in standardization - Evidence from the community innovation survey

In this paper, we explore the relationship between firms´ external knowledge sourcing and their decision to participate in standardization alliances. Based on micro data we show that the importance of external knowledge is positively correlated with participation in standardization. This suggests that firms aim to access the knowledge of other companies and stakeholders in order to increase their own knowledge base. The analysis also shows that firms cooperating with different actors are more likely to join standardization. Due to the positive relationships with incoming knowledge spillovers and forms of cooperation, we conclude that standardization represents a specific form of collaborative knowledge-sharing and knowledge-creating strategy. In addition, we are able to show that absorptive capacity measured via companies´ research intensity promotes the involvement in standardization.