Do professional service firms benefit from customer and supplier collaborations in competitive,turbulent environments?

Although recent research on business-to-business professional service firms (PSFs) emphasizes the role and consequences of collaboration with business partners, we know little regarding the conditions under which bright-side benefits of PSF interfirm collaboration turn into dark-side drawbacks. Our study shows that customer and supplier collaborations have both bright and dark sides, and their benefits with respect to helping a PSF to drive service performance are contingent on the levels of the environmental competition and turbulence. In particular, we show that increasing levels of competitive intensity and environmental turbulence encountered by a PSF can diminish the capacity of customer and supplier collaborations to drive service performance. When the level of competitive intensity increases, the benefits of customer collaboration become more positive; however, the dark-side of supplier collaboration becomes more pronounced, which negatively influences service performance. When the level of environmental turbulence increases, the dark-side of customer and supplier collaborations becomes more critical and the benefits derived from interfirm collaboration to promote service performance can be lost.     

A model of value assessment in collaborative R&D programs

This study examines the tasks, processes, and frameworks central to performance assessment in collaborative research organizations. The domain of the study is the partnered learning approach to research and development (R&D) management. The empirical results highlight relationships between context (center scale) and performance (value perceived by industry sponsors) in such R&D collaborations. Insights from this research are broadly applicable to the maintenance of alliances among firms involved in collaborative R&D and are generalizable to that context. Data gathered from a national population of 58 National Science Foundation (NSF) sponsored centers over a 3-year period reveal significant evolutionary patterns in the development of collaborative relationships. Successful industry university consortia leverage four core process relationships: (1) the creation of research capacity yielding advances in process and product knowledge; (2) technology transfer behaviors within the participants' organizations; (3) participant satisfaction with the outcomes; and (4) the continuity of industry sponsor support, i.e., commitment to the collaboration.     

Boundary spanner relational behavior and inter-organizational control in supply chain relationships

Boundary spanner relational behavior is considered critical in the successful management of buyer–supplier relationships and may help avoiding high costs of more formal inter-organizational controls. Yet, the influence of partners' boundary spanners on effective supply chain collaboration has had much less inquiry than the influence of broader inter-organizational controls. We use survey data of 200 buyer–supplier relationships to examine how these individual and organizational control mechanisms influence the performance effects of interfirm collaborations that vary in scope of activities undertaken. Findings show that collaboration scope as well as boundary spanner relational behavior and inter-organizational controls are positively associated with performance. The effect of collaboration scope on firm performance, however, also depends on both mechanisms but in opposite directions: while its influence on performance is enhanced by inter-organizational controls, relational behavior of partners' boundary spanners has a negative moderating effect, indicating that such behavior contributes more to the effective management of collaborations of narrow scope than those of broader scope.     

Common purpose and divided loyalties: the risks and rewards of cross-sector collaboration for academic and government researchers

International evidence shows that research is increasingly being carried out in organisational forms built around cross-sectoral (government, academic and business) and transdisciplinary teams with well-defined national social, economic or environmental objectives in view. As a result, new and unfamiliar forms of organisational arrangements for research are emerging within universities and elsewhere. These collaborative research centres have been variously termed 'hybrid' or 'parasitic'. This paper draws upon around 30 in-depth interviews with participants from selected Australian Cooperative Research Centres (CRC). It examines how researchers reconcile the many demands of their dual role, first, as a government researcher or academic, and second as a committed participant in an industry-collaborative research centre. These collaborations go beyond 'applied research' to span fundamental research and immediately useful knowledge. But reward systems and performance measures for academic researchers are still founded largely on 'discovery', while those for government researchers are based upon 'application'. The risk is that researchers will be deflected by the collaboration in ways that conflict with their institutional responsibilities. The paper reports work analysing the management strategies used by the CRCs and their public sector partners to ensure that their common goals are achieved while preserving their institutional interests and the expectations of their research staff. The aim is to identify effective ways of managing the various 'risks' of cross-sector collaborative research and development (R&D) in Australia and more widely.     

The bidirectional relationship between competitive intensity and collaboration: Evidence from China

This paper argues for a bidirectional relationship between competitive intensity perceived by a firm and its strategic response in the form of forging collaborations. Consistent with a variety of theoretical perspectives including enactment, cognition, and the resource-based view, we conceptualize competitive intensity as a firm-level construct and hypothesize that collaboration will reduce the perceived competitive intensity due to the twin mechanisms of information acquisition and risk reduction. We also predict an inverted U-shaped relationship for the impact of competitive intensity on the likelihood of forming at least one collaboration. We test our predictions using data on the dynamic and competitive Chinese market. Our analyses provide strong support to the bidirectional argument.     

Building and leveraging competence exploitation and exploration for firm new product success

We theorize that industry conditions of collaboration intensity and innovation intensity drive the development of competence exploitation and exploration in manufacturer-manufacturer collaborations, and that such competencies can be leveraged to increase firm-level new product sales and market share, contingent on the firm's establishment of non-proprietary knowledge transfer capability. We test our model using a survey of 224 manufacturer-manufacturer collaborations. Our findings indicate that collaboration intensity drives firms to build both competence exploration and exploitation while innovation intensity drives neither. We also find that while non-proprietary knowledge capability enhances the influence of competence exploration on a firm's new product sales and market share, it dampens the firm's ability to leverage competence exploitation for firm-level new product success.     

A study of co-authorship and collaborative research among Indian space technologists

The paper sets out the methodology adapted and the sample studied, analyses the productivity of space scientists and engineers in terms of number of papers published with full as well as fractional authorship credits, discusses in detail the pattern of collaboration of space technologists in publishing papers, and lastly, identifies nonintersecting informal communication groups and 'communication stars' based on collaboration.     

Licensing Foreign Technology and the Moderating Role of Local R&D Collaboration: Extending the Relational View

The relational resource‐based view posits that performance differences among firms can be explained not only by the possession of internal resources but also by maintaining and developing relationships with external partners. However, studies in the extant literature usually address the separated roles of various external relationships of focal firms, but the literature has not addressed how relationships with different sets of knowledge partners are related to each other and influence focal firms' performance. Therefore, to fill this research gap, this study focuses on how technological resources acquired from one set of partners (licensing foreign technologies) may generate subsequent internal and relational rents in terms of technological innovation in the context of collaboration with an entirely different set of knowledge partners (local R&D partners). Specifically, we propose that local R&D collaborations need to be large in scale and broad in scope. The empirics are based on the analysis of a sample of 160 high‐tech Chinese firms observed from 2000 to 2011. Consistent with our predictions, our findings contribute to extending the relational view by addressing the relations among the relationships of focal firms.     

Competitive intensity and collaboration: impact on firm growth across technological environments

This article investigates the impact of competitive intensity and collaboration on firm growth across technological environments. I propose that competitive intensity determines the likelihood of firm collaboration, and that the interaction of competitive intensity and collaboration influences firm growth. These relationships are, in turn, moderated by industry‐level technological intensity. Analyzing 1,004 firms and 378 collaborations from the manufacturing sector in Singapore, I find that firms facing high or low levels of competitive intensity collaborate less often than those facing moderate levels of competitive intensity. Industry technology intensity moderates this relationship, with a stronger inverted‐U‐shaped association between competitive intensity and collaboration in more technology intensive industries. Collaboration leads to higher growth for firms facing lower levels of competitive intensity than for firms facing higher levels of competitive intensity only in more technology intensive industries. In technologically less intensive industries, collaboration leads to higher growth for firms facing higher levels of competitive intensity as compared to those facing lower levels of competitive intensity. These findings have important implications for competitive and collaborative dynamics for firm growth in different technological environments. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

R&D collaboration as a global competitive tactic —Biotechnology and the ethical pharmaceutical industry

Abstract
In a technology driven industry, emergence of a new technology can trigger changes in the associated market structure and in the nature of competitive forces – changes herein defined as an industry paradigm shift. Biotechnology has precipitated such a paradigm shift in the ethical pharmaceutical industry, and one consequence is a proliferation of R&D collaborations. However, this paradigm shift is occurring at the same time that global competition is intensifying, and biotechnology R&D collaboration has become a tool in the geopolitical strategies of the major industrial nations. Government intervention to promote such collaborations can have deleterious long-term effects, as described earlier for the semiconductor industry. These effects are posed again for biotechnology and the ethical pharmaceutical industry, in the hopes of provoking a dialogue among concerned parties. These issues must be addressed soon, if the competitive position of this industry –as well as governments and universities – is not to be compromised.     

Trust Formation in University–Industry Collaborations in the U.S. Biotechnology Industry: IP Policies,Shared Governance,and Champions*,†

Haggling over rights to potential inventions can be a major roadblock to successful university–industry (UI) collaborations. Yet such collaborations are critical for innovation in science‐based industries. This study examines the roles of universities' intellectual property (IP) policies and of shared governance for trust formation between academe and industry. The study also examines how UI champions moderate this process and how trust between university and industry partners affects UI collaboration outcomes. The analysis of survey data of 105 recent UI collaborations in the U.S. biotechnology industry indicates that the flexibility and transparency of university IP policies and shared governance by UI partners are both positively related to trust formation. The activities of UI champions amplify the positive effects of shared governance and at the same time reduce the importance of university IP policies for trust formation between UI partners. The amount of trust between partners is positively related to knowledge transfer and innovation performance. The findings suggest that despite widely reported industry concerns over the control of IP, UI research partners can develop a trustful environment and thereby plant the seeds for a successful collaboration. In order to enhance trust, companies should not only consider university IP policies, but also need to actively engage in shared governance with university partners. UI collaboration champions can help shift the attention of company managers from formal rules set by university IP policies toward shared project planning, coordination, and implementation with university partners.     

Intellectual property rights and the evolution of scientific journals as knowledge platforms

The objective of this paper is to evaluate the role that formal intellectual property rights (IPR) play in shaping the downstream demand for knowledge that is initially disclosed through scientific publication in fields where research is generated and utilized across different institutional settings (i.e., academia versus industry). For scientific discoveries with potential commercial applicability, researchers (or their funders) may also seek to establish formal intellectual property protection (e.g., patents); choosing to establish a “patent–paper pair” allows researchers to influence follow-on access to knowledge disclosed in a given scientific journal. This paper evaluates the relationship between scientific journal publication and patenting in research communities with significant public and private authorship by examining the incidence and impact of patent–paper pairs in two journals founded in the late 1990s/early 2000s, Nature Biotechnology and Nature Materials. Using a differences-in-differences framework that exploits the delay between publication and patent grant, we document a range of findings about the impact of patent grant across time and across research populations. First, we find that the negative impact of patent grant is concentrated in the first few years after a journal's founding and eventually becomes positive. Second, patent grant positively impacts follow-on citations from private authors more than from public authors. Finally, we observe an assortative matching pattern where intellectual property grant increases forward citations from authors sharing the same institutional affiliation (e.g., public authors citing public papers) more than research across institutional lines (e.g., public authors citing private papers).     

Research Collaborations by Multi-National Research Oriented Pharmaceutical Firms: 1988–1997

In this paper we survey collaborations on research by 22 of the top pharmaceutical companies in the world. In particular, we discuss the benefits and costs of collaborations on research and we review the existing literature on these issues. We present data for these major research-oriented pharmaceutical firms focusing on collaborations that deal with research, the technologies associated with these collaborations, and the firms that collaborate with these 22 multi-nationals.     

Types of R&D Collaborations and Process Innovation: The Benefit of Collaborating Upstream in the Knowledge Chain

This paper explains how research and development (R&D) collaborations impact process innovation; given the differences in innovation mechanisms, prior insights from studies of product innovation do not necessarily apply to process innovation. Extending the knowledge‐based view of the firm, this paper classifies four types of R&D collaborations—with universities, suppliers, competitors, and customers—in terms of two knowledge dimensions: position in the knowledge chain and contextual knowledge distance. Position in the knowledge chain is the position of the R&D collaboration partner in the knowledge chain of the industry—the input–output sequence of activities that result in the transformation of raw materials into products that are used by end customers. Based on this knowledge chain, this paper considers universities and suppliers as upstream R&D collaborators, and competitors and customers as downstream R&D collaborators. Contextual knowledge distance is the difference in industry‐related contexts of operation of the R&D collaboration partners and the firm. Based on this, this paper views R&D collaborators that are suppliers and competitors as having low contextual knowledge distance to the firm, and R&D collaborators that are customers and universities as having high contextual knowledge distance to the firm. Using this classification, this paper proposes a ranking of R&D collaborations in terms of their impact on process innovation: R&D collaborations with suppliers have the highest impact, followed by R&D collaborations with universities, then R&D collaborations with competitors, and finally R&D collaborations with customers. These arguments are tested on a four‐year panel of 781 manufacturing firms. The results of the analyses indicate that R&D collaborations with suppliers and universities appear to have a positive impact on process innovation, R&D collaborations with customers appear to have no impact, and R&D collaborations with competitors appear to have a negative impact. As a consequence, the main driver of the impact of R&D collaborations on process innovation appears to be position in the knowledge chain rather than contextual knowledge distance. These novel ideas and findings contribute to the literature on process innovation. Even though process innovation tends to be internal and tacit to the firm, it can still benefit from external R&D collaborations; this paper is the first to analyze this relationship and provide a theoretical framework for understanding why this would be the case. This study also has important managerial implications. It suggests that managers need to be careful in choosing the partners for their firms' R&D collaborations. Engaging in R&D collaborations with universities and suppliers appears to be helpful for process innovation, whereas conducting R&D collaborations with competitors may potentially harm process innovation.     

Joint learning in R&D collaborations and the facilitating relational practices

The present study considers joint learning as a relational dynamic capability and examines the role of relational practices as enablers of joint learning in R&D collaboration between suppliers and their customers. The study applies a qualitative comparative case method to analyze seven dyadic cases, selected based on a quantitative dataset and cluster analysis. Our results indicate that in dyadic relationships, firms would benefit from developing practices related to relational investments, relational structures, and relational capital that facilitate joint learning and yield collaborative advantages from R&D interactions. This paper contributes to the existing literature on joint learning in R&D collaborations by defining joint learning as a relational dynamic capability and by focusing on the practices that facilitate it in R&D collaboration.     

R&D Collaborations and Product Innovation*

This paper studies the relative impact on product innovation of research and development (R&D) collaborations with universities, suppliers, customers, and competitors. It argues that each type of R&D collaboration differs in terms of the breadth of new knowledge provided to the firm and in the ease of access of this new knowledge, resulting in a different impact on product innovation. As a result, it proposes that R&D collaborations with universities are likely to have the highest impact on product innovation, followed by R&D collaborations with suppliers, customers, and, finally, competitors. These arguments are tested on the R&D collaborations undertaken by a sample of 781 manufacturing firms during 1998–2002. The tests find that R&D collaborations with suppliers have the highest positive impact on product innovation, followed by collaborations with universities. Surprisingly, R&D collaborations with customers do not appear to affect product innovation, and collaborations with competitors appear to harm it. Moreover, the positive influence of R&D collaborations with universities and suppliers is sustained over the long‐term, but the negative influence of R&D collaborations with competitors is, fortunately, short‐lived. These findings indicate that ease of knowledge access, rather than breadth of knowledge, appears to drive the success of R&D collaborations for product innovation. R&D collaborations with suppliers or universities, which are characterized by relatively easy knowledge access, have a positive influence on product innovation, whereas R&D collaborations with customers or competitors, which are characterized by reduced ease in knowledge access, are not related or are even negatively related to product innovation. Moreover, to achieve product innovation with the help of R&D collaborations, it appears that the collaboration must first have mechanisms in place to facilitate the transfer of knowledge; once these are in place, it is better if the partner has a relatively narrow knowledge base. Thus, while R&D collaborations with both suppliers and universities are positively related to product innovation, the narrow knowledge base provided by collaborations with suppliers appears to have a larger positive impact on product innovation than the wider knowledge base provided by collaborations with universities. These arguments and findings are important and novel. The paper is one of the first to theoretically explain and empirically show that various types of collaborations have a differential influence on product innovation. It goes beyond previous literature by providing a theoretical logic for ranking the likely impact of types of collaborations on product innovation. The study also suggests to managers to carefully select the partners for their firms' R&D collaborations. Collaborations with suppliers appear to be the most promising for product innovation, followed by collaborations with universities, whereas collaborations with competitors may be detrimental to product innovation.     

An investigation into the roles of open innovation collaboration managers

The concept of open innovation has gained traction among practitioners and academics. Many different aspects of open innovation have been researched, but the question of how to manage open innovation collaboration in order to achieve the desired knowledge flow across organizational boundaries remains only partly answered. Consequently, this article argues for the need to complement prior firm-centric perspectives by investigating the roles of senior management in the postmodern form of organizing that characterizes open innovation collaboration. A more in-depth understanding of managerial roles in this context can increase the chances of fruitful collaboration. Thus, the article uses an inductive, interview-based approach to explore senior management roles in two institutionalized open innovation collaborations, thereby creating an initial conceptualization of the role of managers in open innovation and forming a basis for further studies on open innovation management. In this respect, the article identifies and discusses additional managerial roles that appear to be crucial for open innovation collaborations. These roles are those of a facilitator, tactician, and sensegiver.     

Student perceptions and performance in online and offline collaboration in an interior design studio

Competence in collaboration is one of the critical abilities that interior design majors are expected to develop during the course of their education; however, few students are competent to collaborate with others online. The purposes of this study were to identify student perceptions and performance in online collaboration compared to those of offline collaboration and to explore the way students collaborate online. A total of 29 junior interior design students participated in the study. After finishing each online and offline collaborative project, they completed a survey. The findings show that students are more satisfied with offline collaboration and perceive offline collaboration as more effective than online collaboration; however, no significant difference was apparent in student performance online and offline. In addition, the findings show the need to provide appropriate online interface for design collaborations. This paper includes lessons learned and recommendations to promote both online and offline collaboration in a design studio.     

Varieties of Industrial Relations Research: Take‐over,Convergence or Divergence?

Industrial relations (IR) research faces various pressures of internationalization. Not only do global economic forces increasingly shape the subject of the discipline, employment relations, but also the academic community itself is becoming more international. The article discusses whether and in what ways IR research is affected by these trends. It is based on a comparative, longitudinal study of journal publications in the USA, Britain and Germany. The findings reveal significantly different patterns of IR research across the three countries. In particular, the strong variation between US and British research patterns challenges the common notion of a homogeneous Anglo‐Saxon style in conducting social science research. The analysis suggests that despite growing internationalization, IR research continues to be strongly embedded in nationally specific research cultures and traditions.     

Age structure shifts in Research & Development (R&D): Some statistical evidence and an integrative approach to link behavioural aspects of individual and group age in collaborative R&D

Since empirical material concerning the age structure of industrial R&D organizations is scarce an attempt is made to present some statistical evidence in support of the wide-spread notion of a shift toward a higher median age in R&D laboratories during the past years. Then, on an individual level of analysis the results of an extensive review of existing empirical research on the covariation of individual age and scientific performance are summarized in brief. On a group level of analysis research relating age of collaborative R&D groups (i.e., average length of time group members had worked together in a particular group) to group performance is discussed. To integrate the contradictory findings of prior research two analytic concepts are introduced, namely the discrimination of different situations of collaboration and the identification of two basic functions of interactions in collaborative R&D. Based upon these concepts an integrative approach to account for time-related performance patterns on an individual and group level of analysis is laid out. Finally, possibilities of a diagnostic application of the suggested concepts are indicated.