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Sampson (2007) "R&D alliances and firm performance: The impact of technological diversity and alliance organization on innovation

27 important questions on Sampson (2007) "R&D alliances and firm performance: The impact of technological diversity and alliance organization on innovation

On which two factors is focused that likely affect both the ability and the willingness of partners to share knowledge-based capabilities?

Differences between allying firm technological capabilities
Alliance organizational form

Why does the author argue that a moderate level of technological diversity is ideal?

Allying firms that differ moderately from their partners gain more from their collaborative R&D than firms with either very high or very low diversity.

When does the influence of organizational form on alliance outcomes matter more?

When knowledge transfer or sharing between partners is particularly difficult.

Why has the alliance organizational form a profound effect on a firm's ability to benefit from diverse partner resources?

It is not just the efficiency of transfer mechanisms that matters for alliance performance, but also the incentives of partner firms to pool the resources necessary to achieve the aims of an alliance.

Why may highly diverse partner capabilities actually reduce the innovative benefits a firm reaps from collaborative R&D?

Firms can only assimilate capabilities that are sufficiently similar to their own.

Why does beyond a critical minimum level of R&D activities the addition of similar capabilites not increase innovation?

If innovation arises out of new combinations of existing capabilities, then beyond a critical minimum level of R&D activities, the addition of similar capabilities does not increase innovation, since possible new combinations of existing capabilities have been exhausted.

What does pooling distinct perspectives and capabilities, or technological diversity between partners, encourage?

Creativity and novel solutions to existing problems.

What is technological diversity?

Technological diversity is an idea that resembles functional diversity, except that the diversity considered here is based on the technological backgrounds of firms, rather than on an aspect such as individual sales experience or some other functional individual specialization.

When do firms benefit most from R&D alliances?

When partner capabilities are diverse, creating a larger number of possible combinations, but not so diverse so as to prevent efficient assimilation

What do direct benefits include?

Access to capabilities outside a firm that are critical to the successful product or process development that is the focus of a current alliance

What do indirect benefits include?

Learning or development over the course of the alliance of new competences that are useful for other firm projects (nonalliance activities)

Why are both direct and indirect outcomes important?

Since the goal of many firms engaging in R&D alliances is to gain knowledge from partners that would be useful not only for alliance projects but also for later firm projects

Which two alternatives in organizing their alliance activities can firms choose from?

Bilateral contract
Equity joint venture

What is a bilateral contract?

A contractual arrangement in which partners pool their capabilities for the purposes of collaborative R&D but do not form a separate legal identity for the alliance

What is an equity joint venture?

A new entity is created, jointly owned and operated by two or more collaborating firms to pool capabilities

Why may organizational form affect firm innovative performance?

Since alliance organization affects a firm's ability and incentives to share information with its partners

What is the most important and prevalent context of knowledge transfer in alliances?

The mobility of and/or contact between technical employees of the parent firms and between the parent firms and the alliance

What is the key mechanism for knowledge transfer between venture and parents?

Employee rotation and contact of employees of each firm with employees of the joint venture

On which two key insights is the knowledge-based view founded?

First: knowledge is difficult to transfer, particularly when it is complex, as in the case of much technological information.
Second: Firms have particular characteristics that make knowledge sharing easier within firms than between firms.

Where is knowledge sharing easier? Joint venture of bilateral contract?

Given that an equity joint venture is closer to a firm than the less hierarchical bilateral contract, these arguments suggest that sharing knowledge is easier within an alliance organized as an equity joint venture than within an alliance organized by bilateral contract.

What consistent attributes does a joint venture have that distinguishes it from bilateral contract and allows for more efficient knowledge sharing and transfer

formal joint management
exclusive assignment of some employees to the joint venture
more efficient routine development than in a bilateral contract

Why doses the assignment of employees to a joint venture also facilitates more efficient knowledge sharing between partners than a bilateral contract?

Employees assigned to an equity joint venture often become the exclusive employees of the venture and cannot be easily recalled back to the parent firm

What does the creation of a separate legal entity encourage via a joint venture?

Investment in the development of routines, including routines for knowledge or information transfer

When may firms be able but not willing to share their knowledge-based capabilities?

Firms entering alliances face considerable moral hazard problems, since partner firm behavior is often unobservable, and the costs of opportunism are potentially high.

Where does an equity joint venture likely provide less benefit?

Where knowledge is codifiable, simple, or closely related to a partner's knowledge base, since knowledge sharing is straightforward in these situations

What does the finding of H1 (moderate diversity) suggest?

That some diversity between partners is good, even required, for innovation, lest firms find they have nothing to learn from their partners. However, when partners are too diverse, firms have difficulty learning from their partners. This result holds irrespective of the alliance organizational form chosen. Supporting the absorptive capacity hypothesis, partners require some sort of common stock of knowledge to utilize knowledge/resources that are not common to both parties.

What does the finding of H2 (organizational form) suggest?

Firms benefit from organizing alliances under the equity joint venture form when technological diversity between them is higher. Benefits from collaborative activities organized by equity joint venture are over 30 times greater with moderate diversity and 100 times greater with high diversity than are benefits from collaboration under the bilateral contract counterparts.

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