Technology Coopetition and 10-K Voluntary R&D Disclosure

We examine firms’ voluntary R&D disclosure under technology coopetition, focusing on technology standard setting organizations (SSOs). Technology coopetition is characterized by i) cooperation to determine technology standards, which requires information sharing to reach consensus, and ii) competition for standard implementation to obtain standard-essential patents, which create incentives for firms to deviate from the expected level of information sharing. To minimize detection risk, firms strategically withhold R&D information in 10-K disclosures. Consistent with this hypothesis, we document a significant decrease in the level of 10-K narrative R&D disclosure after a firm joins an SSO. For identification, we exploit a quasi-exogenous shock to information sharing introduced by intellectual property litigations and document a significant decrease in SSO firms’ 10-K R&D disclosure. Analyses based on i) SSO firms’ search activities of public filings and ii) proxies for information sharing within the SSO further support our hypothesis.