From formation to performance outcomes: A review and agenda for licensing research

Licensing strategies have gained much attention among practitioners. However, academic research on the topic is, compared to similar domains such as franchising, more limited and fragmented. This may be due to the lack of a clear conceptual delineation between licensing and other inter-organizational strategies, most notably franchising. Hence this review aims to improve the understanding of licensing as a distinct academic domain by providing a timely and systematic overview of extant licensing research based on narrative synthesis. Specifically, 105 publications from 25 high-impact journals published between 2000 and 2018 are considered. Findings are presented alongside the three licensing agreement management stages: formation, contract design, and performance outcomes. Promising avenues for future research include brand licensing, the licensee perspective, increased theoretical diversity, refined performance criteria, and sounder empirical insights. The review concludes with several theoretical and managerial implications for licensors and licensees.