Organizing links with science: Cooperate or contract?: A project-level analysis

Links with science have been argued to improve the (innovation) performance of firms. Yet we still know comparatively little about the project-level characteristics affecting the organization of such links. Our study, based on a sample of 52 projects carried out by a multinational company in the sem...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Research policy 2010-09, Vol.39 (7), p.882-892
Main Authors: Di Guardo, Maria Chiara, Cassiman, Bruno, Valentini, Giovanni
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Business education relationship
Colleges & universities
Multinational corporations
Project management
R&D
R&D projects Industry-science links Organizing innovation
Research & development
Semiconductors
Studies
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Links with science have been argued to improve the (innovation) performance of firms. Yet we still know comparatively little about the project-level characteristics affecting the organization of such links. Our study, based on a sample of 52 projects carried out by a multinational company in the semiconductor industry, reveals that the knowledge attributes of a project help in predicting how the R&D activities will be organized. In particular, basic projects are likely to be developed through formal cooperative agreements with universities. Such projects also tend to be strategically less important. For strategically more important projects, in contrast, and for those where the knowledge to be developed is particularly novel to the firm, the firm is more likely to resort to formal contracting with a university for a specific component of the R&D project, usually early on in the project.
ISSN:0048-7333
1873-7625
DOI:10.1016/j.respol.2010.04.009