Coordination Costs: A Drawback for Research Joint Ventures?

Symmetric Research Joint Ventures

We introduce the concept of cooperative substitutes and complements, and use it to throw light on the conditions for a research joint venture to choose equal levels of R&D by all member firms. We show that the second-order conditions for a symmetric optimum take a particularly simple form, ruling out both excessive cooperative substitutability and excessive cooperative complementarity, and nest...

Coordinating research through research joint ventures

In a simple model, we show that a joint venture can implement the rates of investment that maximize joint profit when firms’ research abilities are private information. This can be done with budget balance, even though there are participation constraints. There is no conflict between budget balance and participation constraints because firms’ payoffs can depend on ex post signals of abilities. ...

Knowledge Management in Research Joint Ventures

New knowledge (especially technological knowledge) is viewed as the foundation for innovation, change, and sustainable competitive advantage. Today, there is no doubt that knowledge is one of the most strategic weapons that can lead to achieving competitive success (Grant, 1996). The primary role of research and development (R&D) within organizations is to create new knowledge or recombine exis...

Research Joint Ventures, Innovation, and Multiproduct Competition

The costs of shared ownership: Evidence from international joint ventures

This paper analyzes the determinants of partial ownership of the foreign affiliates of U.S. multinational firms and, in particular, the marked decline in the use of joint ventures over the last 20 years. The evidence indicates that whole ownership is most common when firms coordinate integrated production activities across different locations, transfer technology, and benefit from worldwide tax...