β Scribed by Martin Kloyer
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
Because of increasing technological complexity of new products, the manufacturers of final products more often seek access to external sources of knowledge at the early, market-distant stages of innovation processes. However, they are confronted with a specifically high danger of moral hazard. Traditional management instruments fail to control that danger mainly for two reasons. First, the supplier activities are not transparent. Second, market-distant R&D results are credence goods whose quality cannot be evaluated, not even ex post. It is the theory of incomplete contracts that solves the problem by allocating the so-called control rights to the supplier. These rights primarily regulate the assignment of the intellectual property rights, the control of the R&D process, and the marketing of the final products that are based on the delivered R&D results. To date, we do not have any empirical evidence about the relative effectiveness of these control rights. Moreover, studies on incomplete contracts in R&D alliances only focused on the collaboration between biotechnology and pharmaceutical firms. Our study fills these gaps. On the basis of a sample of French and German R&D suppliers, we find that only enforceable intellectual property rights assigned to the supplier effectively control moral hazard.
π SIMILAR VOLUMES
## Abstract This paper examines the role of culture in universityβindustry R&D collaboration and knowledge interaction in the context of multinational corporations in China. Earlier universityβindustry studies focus primarily on oneβway technology and knowledge transfer; however, the present study
This paper examines the management of collaborative R&D projects with customers. Prior research on social network theory and the knowledge-based view has identified some of the key conditions of successful collaboration. However, the actual management of project dynamics has received less attention.
The growing trend of collaborative R&D initiated by firms has been well documented. However, the evidences regarding basic questions such as the benefits of collaboration and the motives of firms are still mixed. The main novelty of this paper is to investigate these questions by using comprehensive