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Complementarity in R&D Cooperation Strategies

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Abstract

This paper assesses the performance effects of simultaneous engagement in R&D cooperation with different partners (competitors, clients, suppliers, and universities and research institutes). We test whether these different types of R&D cooperation are complements in improving productivity. The results suggest that the joint adoption of cooperation strategies could be either beneficial or detrimental to firm performance, depending on firm size and specific strategy combinations. Customer cooperation helps to increase market acceptance and diffusion of product innovations and enhances the impact of competitor and university cooperation. On the other hand, smaller firms also face diseconomies in pursuing multiple R&D cooperation strategies, which may stem from higher costs and complexity of simultaneously managing multiple partnerships with different innovation objectives.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

    René Belderbos

  2. Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

    René Belderbos

  3. University of Maastricht, P.O. Box 616, 6200 MD, Maastricht, The Netherlands

    Martin Carree & Boris Lokshin

  4. UNU-MERIT, Maastricht, The Netherlands

    Boris Lokshin

Authors
  1. René Belderbos
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  2. Martin Carree
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  3. Boris Lokshin
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Boris Lokshin.

Additional information

The empirical analysis for this paper has been performed at CEREM/Statistics Netherlands. We thank Bert Diederen of CEREM for his assistance. The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the policies of Statistics Netherlands. We thank two anonymous referees, the editor (Lawrence White), Bonnie Beerkens, Geert Duysters, Katrin Hussinger, and Pierre Mohnen for helpful comments on earlier drafts

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Belderbos, R., Carree, M. & Lokshin, B. Complementarity in R&D Cooperation Strategies. Rev Ind Organ 28, 401–426 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11151-006-9102-z

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