Determinants of alliance portfolio complexity and its effect on innovative performance of companies
Geert Duysters & Boris Lokshin
#2007-033
Alliance formation is often described as a mechanism used by firms to
increase voluntary knowledge transfers. Access to external knowledge has
been increasingly recognized as a main source of a firm's
innovativeness. In this paper we examine decisions to form alliance
portfolios of foreign and domestic partners by three groups of firms:
innovators (firms that are successful in introducing new products to the
market), imitators (firms that are successful at introducing new
products, which are not new to the market) and product non-innovators.
We consider an alliance portfolio that includes different partnership
types (competitor, customer, supplier, university/research center). We
develop a measure of portfolio complexity which we define as the number
and diversity of elements of the alliance portfolio with which a firm
must interact. We then estimate models that explain portfolio complexity
and its impact on firm's innovative performance. Using panel data on
more than 1800 firms in the Netherlands we find that foremost innovators
have a strong propensity to form portfolios consisting of international
alliances. Being an innovator or imitator also increases the propensity
to form a portfolio of domestic alliances, relative to non-innovators;
but this propensity is not stronger for innovators. Innovators appear to
derive benefit from both intensive (exploitative) and broad
(explorative) use of external information sources. The former sourcing
is more important for innovators, while the latter for imitators.
Finally, alliance complexity is found to have an inverse U-shape
relationship to innovative performance.
Keywords: Innovation, R&D cooperation, Alliance portfolio
UNU-MERIT Working Papers
ISSN 1871-9872