How does inventor team commingling, which we define as integrating human capital from the target and acquiring firm for R&D collaboration, impact innovation outcomes in technology acquisitions? Organizing post-acquisition R&D production teams in this manner holds the potential of sidestepping the classical integration-autonomy tradeoff. Structural integration facilitates task coordination but may dampen individual motivation, while an autonomous post-acquisition organization presents the opposite tradeoff. We argue that commingling is especially suited to technology acquisition integration and innovation facilitating know-how recombination. We assemble a sample of technology acquisitions, with some firms also experiencing prior R&D alliances with the acquirer. While structural integration reduces post-merger innovation outcomes, inventor commingling has a significant positive effect, increasing post-merger innovation outcomes for firms with more intensive inventor commingling. These effects are distinct from team knowledge diversity. Interestingly, commingling works better for firms that are less structurally integrated. We instrument direct flights between the acquisition party locations to address the issue of endogenous commingling, and find consistent results. This supports a causal interpretation of commingling on innovation. Finally, as initial evidence that the commingling design may also depend on managerial authority and control, we find that inventors who engaged in both post-acquisition commingling and pre-acquisition R&D collaboration experienced greater innovation outcomes under the former structure. These findings suggest ways to augment the knowledge-based theory of the firm.

While global cooperation in standard-setting thrives upon the emergence of many international ecosystems, there are increasing concerns that technology leaks to potential foreign rivals may harm a nation's leadership in the international ecosystems. Yet, will governmental intervention by restricting knowledge transfer helps to maintain/improve domestic companies' leadership? This paper tries to answer this question by investigating the direct impacts of the U.S. sanctions on Huawei by restricting U.S. firms from transferring technical information with the sanctioned entities in the standard-setting process. By closely investigating 3GPP, one of the essential international standard-setting organizations in the telecommunication industry, this paper finds that the restrictions on technology transfer have asymmetric impacts on the influence of knowledge distributors and knowledge receivers. Contrary to the intuition that restrictions on knowledge transfer should have more negative impacts on knowledge receivers, the paper suggests that it is knowledge distributors' influence in the standard-setting body that is severely impaired. This arises because knowledge sharing is an important mechanism for players in an ecosystem to align other actors' technical choices with theirs. Knowledge sharing with complementors is essential for potential cooperation and joint contribution. Balanced against the concerns of imitation and misappropriation, the flexibility to choose the optimal level of technology disclosure is critical for a firm to maximize the expected returns from its entire IP portfolio. Since standard-setting organizations make decisions by forging a broad consensus, the restrictions on knowledge transfers cause knowledge distributors to lose the ability to argue for their technologies' merits. In contrast, the negative impacts on knowledge receivers may be minimized if they can find alternative sources for complementary technologies. As a result, U.S. firms' successful proposals in 3GPP significantly declined compared to those sponsored by Huawei and other participants after the sanctions aimed to "protect" U.S. technologies.

This study focuses on the role of third-party companies when cooperation between two groups of key players is exogenously disrupted. By jointly considering technology interdependence and cooperative interactions between players in an innovation ecosystem, the paper builds a framework to understand the third party's technological and sociological salience in the face of disruptions. The paper identifies two mechanisms through which a third-party player could expand its influence on industry standards after the disruptions: the substitution and the brokerage effects. The substitution effect stems from the third party's technological significance, suggesting that a third-party player having the technical competencies to replace either party in the disrupted relationship would be more influential after the disruptions. The brokerage effect stems from the third party's sociological significance, suggesting that a third-party having social connections with both sides in the disrupted relationships will be more influential after the disruption by brokering information. The social familiarity between the third-party and one party searching for alternative complementors amplifies the substitution effect. Technology proximity across the structural holes in the cooperation network negatively moderates the brokerage effect. To test these hypotheses, I examine how the 2019 introduction of sanctions restricting U.S. firms' interactions with Huawei impacted firms' influence in the 3rd Partnership Program (3GPP) standard body. I focus on third-party companies (e.g., Ericsson and Nokia), that is, firms not regulated by the sanctions because they are neither U.S. firms nor Huawei subsidiaries. By following 67 active third-party companies' successful standard proposals in 535 3GPP meetings from 2016 to April 2021, I find solid empirical evidence to support the hypotheses.