The authors develop an agent-based model to reproduce the size distribution of R&D alliances of firms. Agents are uniformly selected to initiate an alliance and to invite collaboration partners. These decide about acceptance based on an individual threshold that is compared with the utility...

Collaboration has emerged in recent years as a public administration trend of utmost importance (O’Leary, Gerard, and Bingham 2006). The growing complexity of contemporary social issues, dispersed expertise to address them, technological innovations, administrative fragmentation, and...

In response to competitive pressures, firms increasingly use R&D alliances to complement in-house R&D efforts. However, empirical evidence to date provides little guidance on how firms can use this strategy effectively. Here, I examine why some R&D alliances contribute more than others to firm...