Cooperative Strategy,Technology Innovation and Competition Policy in the United States and the European Union

The widespread adoption of joint ventures in the 1980s and strategic alliances in the 1990s by a spectrum of businesses across industries has resulted in cooperative strategy emerging as the corporate and business strategy of the global economy. Of further significance, however, is the relaxation by antitrust authorities in the USA and the EU of policies forbidding or restricting horizontal or competitor collaborations. Beginning in the 1980s, legislation, regulations and guidelines have established a business environment conducive to competitor collaborations. This evolution in competition policy is justified by the need for accelerating technology-based innovations at the firm level, thus improving competitiveness at the national level. The US government and the European Commission have provided firms with "safe harbors' to develop strategic technology alliances with competitors, albeit with notable differences in specific market share thresholds and emphases on qualitative versus quantitative perspectives in their respective competition policy frameworks.