Ambidextrous innovation leap and patent abandonment: A resource orchestration perspective

Patent abandonment can be conceived as a deliberate approach to orchestrate and streamline patent assets, which is often shaped by firms' innovation strategies. This study conceptualizes ambidextrous innovation leap as a strategic reconfiguration of innovation trajectories that redeploys and recombines existing knowledge resources across distinct innovation domains. It investigates how these leaps influence patent abandonment decisions. We propose that such transitions can either disrupt or reinforce the coherence of firms’ knowledge bases, thereby affecting the perceived value and retention of current patent holdings. We distinguish between two types of leaps: upward innovation leap, involving a shift from exploitative to exploratory innovation, and downward innovation leap, denoting the reverse transition. Using panel data on 1623 A-share listed firms in Shanghai and Shenzhen from 2003 to 2021, we find that upward innovation leap has a positive effect on patent abandonment, whilst downward innovation leap negatively affects patent abandonment. We also show that network centrality and knowledge integration capability both negatively moderate the relationship between ambidextrous innovation leaps and patent abandonment. By shedding light on these relationships, this study enriches the research on strategic antecedents of patent abandonment from a resource orchestration perspective, and also has important practical implications for firms making patent abandonment decisions during innovation transitions.