Organizational choice in R&D alliances: Knowledge-based and transaction cost perspectives

Rachelle C. Sampson
Additional contact information
Rachelle C. Sampson: Stern School of Business, New York University, 40 West 4th Street, Tisch 7-10, New York, NY 10012, USA, Postal: Stern School of Business, New York University, 40 West 4th Street, Tisch 7-10, New York, NY 10012, USA

Managerial and Decision Economics, 2004, vol. 25, issue 6-7, 421-436

Abstract: This study examines how firms choose organizational form for their R&D alliances. Encouraging cooperation in these alliances is often challenging, given the difficulties in knowledge sharing between partners and protecting the property rights over partner knowledge. Interestingly, knowledge-based and transaction cost perspectives generate different hypotheses on alliance organization choice in this setting. When partner knowledge bases are very different, the risk of unintended transfer or leakage is reduced, yet the need for enhanced communication and knowledge sharing mechanisms remains undiminished. With a sample of 232 R&D alliances, I find more thorough support for the transaction cost hypothesis. Firms more likely select an equity joint venture as partner knowledge bases diverge and knowledge transfer becomes more difficult. When such knowledge bases are very different, however, firms are less likely to choose an equity joint venture over more contractual forms of alliance organization. Thus, these results provide empirical evidence on alliance organization choice and also have important implications for the fundamental question of why firms exist. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Date: 2004
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (39)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1002/mde.1199 Link to full text; subscription required (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wly:mgtdec:v:25:y:2004:i:6-7:p:421-436

DOI: 10.1002/mde.1199

Access Statistics for this article

Managerial and Decision Economics is currently edited by Antony Dnes

More articles in Managerial and Decision Economics from John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().