Coopetition for innovation in R&D consortia: Moderating roles of size disparity and formal interaction
Coopetition for innovation in R&D consortia: Moderating roles of size disparity and formal interaction
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DOI：
10.1007/s10490-020-09733-x
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发表时间：
2020-08
影响因子：
5.4
通讯作者：
Xiaotian Yang
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Xiaotian Yang
越来越多的企业结成联盟，与竞争对手开展合作创新活动。参与研发联盟的企业不仅可以从合作中获得普遍利益，而且由于与联盟中的竞争对手拥有共同的知识基础，还可以进一步促进沟通和相互学习。然而，R&D联盟作为一种典型的合作创新联盟也有不利之处--合作联盟的竞争给成员企业带来了好处，但也带来了挑战。竞争的机会主义性质使成员企业在决定应该为合作研发活动付出多少努力时陷入两难境地。本研究旨在探讨合作研发联盟中企业创新竞争的收益与成本。这项研究还将确定在财团的网络特性方面扩大竞争优势的边界条件。本研究利用日本50家研发联盟中649家企业的数据，分析了合作联盟中竞争强度与企业创新之间的曲线关系。研究发现，与竞争程度较低或较高的核心企业相比，竞争程度适中的核心企业具有更好的创新绩效。此外，本文还考察了研发联盟企业规模差异和联盟组织互动对企业规模差异的调节作用。研究结果表明，规模差距较小的R&D联盟放大了竞争对合作创新的线性效应，有助于核心企业从合作R&D中获得更多收益；联盟组织的互动强化了竞争强度对创新的曲线效应。本研究利用资源依赖理论和社会网络透镜，填补了多方合作研发联盟中竞争强度何时以及在多大程度上起作用的空白，从而扩展了我们对合作竞争对企业创新绩效影响的理解。这也为管理紧张的R&D联盟的边界条件提供了新的证据。
Increasingly, firms are forming alliances to engage in cooperative innovation activities with their competitors. Participating firms in an R&D consortium can not only obtain the general benefits from cooperation, but also further promote communication and mutual learning due to the common knowledge base with their competitors in the consortium. However, R&D consortium as a typical cooperative innovation alliance has downsides too - competition in a cooperative consortium provides member firms with not only benefits, but also challenges. The opportunistic nature of competition poses a dilemma for member firms when they decide how much effort should be committed to cooperative R&D activities. This study aims to investigate the benefits and costs of competition for firm innovation in cooperative R&D consortia. The study will also identify the boundary conditions to amplify the advantages of competition in terms of the network properties of consortia. The study employs data from 649 firms in 50 Japanese R&D consortia to analyze the curvilinear relationship between the intensity of competition and firm innovation in a cooperative consortium. It was found that a focal firm with a moderate level of competition will have better innovation performance compared to those with either a low or high level of competition. Moreover, it investigates the moderating roles of the firms’ size disparity of R&D consortia and the consortium-organized interaction. The results indicate that the R&D consortium with a low size disparity amplifies the linear effect of the competition on cooperative innovation, which can help the focal firm achieve more gains from cooperative R&D. The consortium-organized interaction strengthens the curvilinear effect of the competition intensity on innovation. This study, using resource dependence theory and social network lenses, extends our understanding of the role of coopetition in firm innovation performance by filling the gap in when and to what extent the intensity of competition matters in multiparty cooperative R&D consortia. It also provides new evidence on the boundary conditions of R&D consortia managing the tension.