Are digital technologies killing future innovation? The curvilinear relationship between digital technologies and firm's intellectual property

Purpose: The study aims to understand how digital technologies impact firm’s innovativeness and intellectual capital creation. Precisely, we argue that digital technologies exert a positive influence on firm’s intellectual property, but the relationship is inverse u-shaped. Design/methodology/approach: Hypotheses are tested through the multiple regression method on a large-scale sample of micro-data drawn from Eurostat. The dataset includes information on European firms. Findings: At large, evidences seem to confirm that digital technologies may have a positive influence on the creation of intellectual capital and innovativeness of firms. However, the results also suggest that this relationship is not straightforward. By contrast, it seems more inverse u-shaped. Also, some components related to both human capital and relational capital hinder the creation of firm’s intellectual capital. Research limitations/implications:. The use of a sample exclusively including European firms might limit the span of the research’s results, albeit European Union might be considered a champion of the diffusion of digital technologies. Practical implications: Practitioners may use the findings of the study to foster the creation of intellectual property and to remove barriers to innovativeness. Originality/value: