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Research Summary: This research addresses firms' use of external knowledge sources to develop patented inventions and explores the validity of patent citations as an indicator of interfirm knowledge flows. By comparing patent citations with primary data reported by the inventors, we uncover systematic measurement errors in patent citations and show that they depend on the firms' patent strategies (e.g., to reduce the risk of imitation or litigation), the source of knowledge employed (e.g., competitors, users), the technology of the underlying invention, and the institutional characteristics of the patent system. Our findings about the role of these factors in external knowledge sourcing and citing propensity highlight the importance of firms' strategic behavior and offer novel insights for the use of patent citations as an indicator of knowledge flows. Managerial Summary: Firms' open innovation strategies rely on the sourcing of knowledge from other organizations. Tracing these knowledge flows is difficult, such that the empirical research on this matter typically uses citations that patents make to prior art in order to track them. However, patent citations might be added also for reasons other than the actual transfer of knowledge. We use primary information from a large survey of inventors to assess the accuracy of patent citations to measure knowledge flows, and we find evidence of measurement errors that depend on the applicants' patent strategies, the type of knowledge sources used, the filing jurisdiction, and the technology of the underlying invention. We offer insights to evaluate the settings in which patent citations are a reliable measure of knowledge flows. K E Y W O R D Sexternal search strategy, knowledge flows, measurement error, patent citations, patent strategy

This study adopts a resilience perspective to explain how companies managed to contribute innovative solutions to fight the COVID‐19 crisis. We studied how five companies operating in different industries (three in automotive, one in printing, and one in rubber and plastic products manufacturing) managed to reorganize activities and employ their R&D and innovation capabilities to enhance their resilience. Simultaneously, they increased the health system’s capacity to cope with the outbreak. Through a qualitative inductive study, based on interviews with company managers, we found that the firms mobilized their resources and capabilities to expand their ability to adapt and cope with adversity at the organizational level. In addition, moved by the sensitivity to the extreme context and a perceived sense of urgency, the firms deployed the same endowments to strengthen the community’s response to a crisis. Our study shows that an organization can directly and positively foster the broader social system’s resilience. This study contributes to the innovation literature by identifying innovation capabilities as fundamental antecedents of resilience building for organizational response, paving the way for strengthening the link between resilience and innovation.

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This article addresses an issue that is debated in the economics of innovation literature, namely the existence of increasing returns to R&D expenditures and firm size, in product innovation. It explores further how the firm's structural characteristics and contextual factors affect the sustained introduction of new components over a relatively long time period. Taking advantage of an original and unique database comprising information on new product announcements by leading semiconductor producers, we show that: (i) decreasing returns to size and R&D expenditures characterize the innovation production function of the sampled firms; (ii) producers operating a larger product portfolio exhibit a higher propensity to introduce new products than their specialized competitors; (iii) aging has positive bearings on the firm's ability to innovate.R&D, firm size, product innovation, semiconductor industry,