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Industry–university–research alliance portfolio size and firm performance: the contingent role of political connections

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Abstract

Nowadays firms often collaborate with multiple universities and research institutes simultaneously, thereby forming portfolios of industry–university–research (IUR) alliances. To study this, we go beyond the dyadic level that has been the dominant theme in prior research on IUR alliances to examine IUR alliances at the alliance portfolio level. Using the dataset of Chinese manufacturing firms, we investigate the influence of IUR alliance portfolio size on focal firms’ innovation and financial performance. Our findings indicate that IUR alliance portfolio size has an inverted U-shaped effect on firm innovation performance, while political connections weaken the negative effect of IUR alliance portfolio size, thus making the inverted U-shaped relationship become flattened. In addition, we find that IUR alliance portfolio size exerts a negative effect on firm financial performance, while political connections weaken the negative effect of IUR alliance portfolio size. This study contributes to previous research on the relationships between IUR alliances and firm performance, extends prior research on alliance portfolios, and adds to the ongoing debate on the value of political connections to firms. Besides, this study suggests firm managers should consider IUR alliance portfolio size and actively seek government support, that academic institute managers should strengthen IUR collaborations and reduce conflicts and costs in cooperation, and that policymakers should offer more support for firms and shape a better market environment.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Associate Editor Maribel Guerrero and two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and excellent guidance. We acknowledge financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant numbers 71572141, 71802157).

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  1. School of Management, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, 710049, China

    Shuman Zhang, Changhong Yuan & Chen Han

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Appendix

Appendix

See Tables 6 and 7.

Table 6 Regression results for firm innovation performance in robustness tests
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Table 7 Regression results for firm financial performance in robustness tests
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Zhang, S., Yuan, C. & Han, C. Industry–university–research alliance portfolio size and firm performance: the contingent role of political connections. J Technol Transf 45, 1505–1534 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10961-020-09778-6

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