The role of scientific knowledge within inventing teams and the moderating effects of team internationalization and team experience: Empirical tests into the aerospace sector

The present paper aims at understanding whether and under which circumstances leveraging scientific knowledge helps teams to develop technologies that can be applied to diverse domains (i.e., more general purpose technologies). Specifically, the relationship between the presence of scientists within inventing teams and the generality of the technologies they create is examined. Furthermore, we asses if the degree of team internationalization and the extent of team experience impact the above-mentioned relationship. We develop a set of hypotheses and test them on a sample of 5,390 patents belonging to the aerospace sector and granted by the USPTO. Our results outline that the presence of scientists within inventing teams is negatively related to the development of more general purpose solutions. In addition, we highlight that this negative effect is mitigated when scientists work within an international team, while it is amplified when scientists repeatedly work together.