Managing tension in open and open-ended innovation: The role of intellectual property in digital and sustainable entrepreneurship

Doctoral thesis, 2026

Intellectual property (IP) forms a central building block for technology-based ventures in particular, but its use is changing under the influence of digitalization and the sustainability transition. Specifically, where innovation becomes increasingly open and open-ended, IP needs to simultaneously accommodate stability and change, as well as knowledge protection and knowledge sharing. Where IP decisions can be path dependent or exclusionary, this creates tensions, the manifestations and management of which are ill-understood. The work in this thesis sought to examine the role of IP in digital and sustainable entrepreneurship in order to identify pain points and coping strategies that allow ventures to manage and even overcome tensions – turning competing demands into paradoxical complements. Three studies are appended: a literature review on the state of the art in IP management research, a longitudinal comparative multiple case study of digital technology-based ventures, and a cross-sectional study of sustainable innovation-based ventures in the fashion industry. The findings from these studies are discussed in five papers, which highlight open-endedness in the design of IP artifacts, for instance through under-specification of terms, and rigidity mitigation in IP decision-making, for instance through delaying, timing or sequencing decisions. The embeddedness of IP within the overall organization of the venture is stressed, including its relationship to the venture’s business model, which is shown to be more complex in the context of a sustainable business model as it includes social and environmental in addition to economic value creation and capture. The papers demonstrate how ventures use their IP to orchestrate tensions between different forms of value, illustrating opportunities as well as caveats in the use of IP for balancing sustainable outcomes. In the cover paper, these findings are discussed, synthesized, and positioned within ongoing debates, suggesting avenues for future research and spotlighting pertinent dilemmas and developments for research and practice.