Alliance formation is commonplace in many high-technology industries experiencing radical technological change, where established firms use alliances with new entrants to adapt to technological change, while new entrants benefit from the ability of established players to commercialize the new...

This paper examines how a radical technological innovation affects alliance formation of firms and subsequent network structures. We use longitudinal data of interfirm R&D collaborations in the biopharmaceutical industry in which a new technological regime is established. Our findings suggest...

Building on the recent theoretical notion that a firm's alliance management capability can be a source of competitive advantage (Dyer and Singh, 1998; Ireland, Hitt, and Vaidyanath, 2002), we empirically investigate the effect of alliance-specific and firm-level factors on a high-technology...

When inter-firm alliance contracts are inevitably incomplete and include interdependent, though to some extent non-contractible, activities, contracting parties can device coordination mechanisms that both facilitate guidance of the alliance through communication and promote mutual adaptability...

Drawing on the organizational learning literature, we study the effect of alliance experience on alliance performance. We differentiate between firm-level general alliance experience obtained from alliances across a diverse set of partners and dyad-level partner-specific alliance experience...

I argue that incumbent firms may adapt to a radical innovation through interfirm cooperation with new entrants. In particular, I suggest that incumbent firms may leverage their pre-innovation complementary assets via exploitation alliances with new entrants. Thus, exploitation alliances are...

The point of departure is a competence-destroying technological discontinuity. We posit that the type of complementary assets (generic vs. specialized) needed to commercialize the new technology is critical in determining the industry- and firm-level performance in the post-discontinuity time...

Increases in alliance activity between research-intensive firms and incumbents is puzzling since it is challenging to contract upon highly uncertain R&D activities. Our paper extends prior research by exploring the relationship between firm capabilities and preferences for control rights. This...

We use a simple model of collaborative innovation to structure an empirical analysis of minority equity links in biotechnology alliances between clients and R&D firms. In the model, an equity link is an investment in information acquisition: it improves the ability of the client to learn about...

The role played in the last decades by contract research organizations (CROs) has been almost completely neglected by the economic and managerial literature. At most they are presented as firms performing routine clinical tasks, a portrait which is largely outdated and misleading. Thus the main...