Membership, Governance, and Lobbying in Standard-Setting Organizations

Exit, Voice and Loyalty: Strategic Behavior in Standards Development Organizations

“…For instance, Larouche and Schuett 219 in their study on voting rules in SDOs show that standard-setting efforts that span over generations of technologies are characterised by repeated interaction with a few core members being the dominant IP related contributors in each successive generation. Seen in conjunction with the observation of Fleming and Waguespack 220 , and Larrain and Prufer 221 , that small firms (downstream implementers) perceive standard setting as a 'source of learning' and a means of gaining from knowledge spillovers, such firms are expected to comprise the 'inert' members. Such members attach significance to the presence of marquee, influential IP-driven members, and are thus not prone to exercise voice even if the proposed changes are undesirable.…”

The role of standard‐setting organizations in deciding product quality and process innovation

“…Consequently, we restrict our attention to those papers that analyze firms' decisions in the presence of an SSO: these papers focus on the firms' intellectual property holding (Layne‐Farrar et al, 2014), their pool of patents (Layne‐Farrar & Lerner, 2011), their timing of entry in an SSO (Kauffman, unpublished), firms' choosing which SSO to join (Chiao et al, 2007; Lerner & Tirole, 2006), firm switching costs (Chen & Forman, 2006), firm efficiency differences and externality effects with R&D intensity (Gupta et al, 2008), and so forth. Despite drawing attention to the aforementioned body of the literature, there are also distantly related yet notable strands of the literature, for instance, Llanes and Poblete (2020), where the efficiency of SSOs when competition between groups of technology sponsors (firms) affect the standard‐setting process; also of note is Fiedler et al (2018), who analyze (i) standard‐essential patents' pricing alongside industry profits, and welfare and the incentives for innovators with heterogeneous R&D profiles to participate in the formation of SSOs and (ii) the incentives to lobby and to become active in the SSO's committees. In briefly addressing the empirical literature, we find that there is research that also analyses the firms' decision to join SSOs: Blind (2010), Blind (2016), Rysman and Simcoe (2008), and Simcoe et al (2007).…”

The Resilience of Private Authority in Times of Crisis

“…114 Such traits appear to equip a given group with sufficient flexibility to be shielded from internal challenges of due process and balance of interests and external attacks of arbitrariness and lack of legitimacy. 115 In a given turning moment, the critical transition occurs: the private rule-making body overrides State power and reigns over a regulatory field, thereby slowly creating a new hierarchy; in other words, a different equilibrium and stable state of authority in a system. 116 Much of proactive free riding is detached from any particular territory.…”