Knowledge misappropriation risks and contractual complexity in entrepreneurial ventures’ non-equity alliances

Massimo G. Colombo () and Evila Piva ()
Additional contact information
Massimo G. Colombo: Politecnico di Milano
Evila Piva: Politecnico di Milano

Small Business Economics, 2019, vol. 53, issue 1, No 5, 107-127

Abstract: Abstract This paper explores the role of anticipated knowledge misappropriation risks in contract design in non-equity alliances involving high-tech entrepreneurial ventures. We argue that these ventures anticipate higher knowledge misappropriation risks, and are, thus, inclined to negotiate more complex contracts, when partner firms have greater ability and incentives to appropriate the ventures' technological knowledge, and knowledge misappropriation is more detrimental to the ventures. In the empirical sections of the paper, we consider 211 dyadic non-equity alliances involving Italian high-tech entrepreneurial ventures, and we examine the relationship between contractual complexity and a series of characteristics of partner firms associated to either higher ability/incentives to appropriate ventures’ knowledge or more negative consequences of misappropriation.

Keywords: Alliances; Contractual complexity; Entrepreneurial ventures; Knowledge misappropriation risks (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L15 L26 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11187-018-0062-0 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:kap:sbusec:v:53:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1007_s11187-018-0062-0

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... 29/journal/11187/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s11187-018-0062-0

Access Statistics for this article

Small Business Economics is currently edited by Zoltan J. Acs and David B. Audretsch

More articles in Small Business Economics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().