IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/10083.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Acquiring Knowledge Within and Across Firm Boundaries: Evidence from Clinical Development

Author

Listed:
  • Pierre Azoulay

Abstract

Considerable evidence suggests that information is acquired more easily within than across firm boundaries. I explore why this is observed in the setting of clinical development. Since the mid-1980s, pharmaceutical firms have partly contracted out the operational aspects of clinical trials to Contract Research Organizations (CROs). Using detailed project-level data for 53 firms, I document that even after controlling for a number of alternative explanations, knowledge-intensive projects are more likely to be assigned to internal teams, while data-intensive projects are more likely to be outsourced. The statistical exercise is complemented by in-depth interviews with six pharmaceutical and biotechnology firms. The qualitative evidence confirms that incentives for knowledge and data production are more easily kept in balance in the firm's own internal labor market than in that of its suppliers. Moreover, firms use relational contracts to ensure that their employees' incentives are both balanced and relatively high-powered.

Suggested Citation

  • Pierre Azoulay, 2003. "Acquiring Knowledge Within and Across Firm Boundaries: Evidence from Clinical Development," NBER Working Papers 10083, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:10083
    Note: PR
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w10083.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bruce Kogut & Udo Zander, 1992. "Knowledge of the Firm, Combinative Capabilities, and the Replication of Technology," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 3(3), pages 383-397, August.
    2. Jonathan Levin, 2003. "Relational Incentive Contracts," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(3), pages 835-857, June.
    3. Chamberlain, Gary, 1984. "Panel data," Handbook of Econometrics, in: Z. Griliches† & M. D. Intriligator (ed.), Handbook of Econometrics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 22, pages 1247-1318, Elsevier.
    4. Steven Tadelis, 2002. "Complexity, Flexibility, and the Make-or-Buy Decision," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(2), pages 433-437, May.
    5. Daniel A. Ackerberg & Maristella Botticini, 2002. "Endogenous Matching and the Empirical Determinants of Contract Form," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(3), pages 564-591, June.
    6. Wernerfelt, Birger, 1997. "On the Nature and Scope of the Firm: An Adjustment-Cost Theory," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 70(4), pages 489-514, October.
    7. Kirk Monteverde, 1995. "Technical Dialog as an Incentive for Vertical Integration in the Semiconductor Industry," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 41(10), pages 1624-1638, October.
    8. Abraham, Katharine G & Taylor, Susan K, 1996. "Firms' Use of Outside Contractors: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 14(3), pages 394-424, July.
    9. Eric Maskin & Jean Tirole, 1999. "Two Remarks on the Property-Rights Literature," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 66(1), pages 139-149.
    10. Ringleb, Al H & Wiggins, Steven N, 1990. "Liability and Large-Scale, Long-term Hazards," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(3), pages 574-595, June.
    11. Luis Garicano, 2000. "Hierarchies and the Organization of Knowledge in Production," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(5), pages 874-904, October.
    12. Sara Fisher Ellison & Catherine Wolfram, 2001. "Pharmaceutical Prices and Political Activity," NBER Working Papers 8482, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Kirk Monteverde & David J. Teece, 1982. "Supplier Switching Costs and Vertical Integration in the Automobile Industry," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 13(1), pages 206-213, Spring.
    14. Carlton, Dennis W, 1979. "Vertical Integration in Competitive Markets under Uncertainty," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(3), pages 189-209, March.
    15. Holmstrom, Bengt & Milgrom, Paul, 1991. "Multitask Principal-Agent Analyses: Incentive Contracts, Asset Ownership, and Job Design," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 7(0), pages 24-52, Special I.
    16. Eric von Hippel, 1998. "Economics of Product Development by Users: The Impact of "Sticky" Local Information," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 44(5), pages 629-644, May.
    17. Iain M. Cockburn & Rebecca M. Henderson & Scott Stern, 2000. "Untangling the origins of competitive advantage," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(10‐11), pages 1123-1145, October.
    18. Klein, Benjamin & Crawford, Robert G & Alchian, Armen A, 1978. "Vertical Integration, Appropriable Rents, and the Competitive Contracting Process," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 21(2), pages 297-326, October.
    19. Andrea Shepard, 1993. "Contractual Form, Retail Price, and Asset Characteristics in Gasoline Retailing," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 24(1), pages 58-77, Spring.
    20. Moulton, Brent R, 1990. "An Illustration of a Pitfall in Estimating the Effects of Aggregate Variables on Micro Unit," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 72(2), pages 334-338, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Chris van Egeraat and Frank Barry, 2008. "The Irish Pharmaceutical Industry over the Boom Period and Beyond," The Institute for International Integration Studies Discussion Paper Series iiisdp271, IIIS.
    2. Eliasson, Gunnar & Eliasson, Åsa, 2004. "Competence in Health Care - An Industrial Systems Analysis Using Competence Bloc Theory to Compare European and US Health Care," Ratio Working Papers 46, The Ratio Institute.
    3. Jung Won Sonn & Michael Storper, 2008. "The Increasing Importance of Geographical Proximity in Knowledge Production: An Analysis of US Patent Citations, 1975–1997," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 40(5), pages 1020-1039, May.
    4. Scherer, F.M., 2010. "Pharmaceutical Innovation," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, in: Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 539-574, Elsevier.
    5. Pierre Azoulay, 2003. "Agents of Embeddedness," NBER Working Papers 10142, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Paulo J. Gomes & Nitin R. Joglekar, 2008. "Linking modularity with problem solving and coordination efforts," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(5), pages 443-457.
    7. Scherer, F. M., 2007. "Pharmaceutical Innovation," Working Paper Series rwp07-004, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    8. James D. Adams & Mircea Marcu, 2004. "R&D Sourcing, Joint Ventures and Innovation: A Multiple Indicators Approach," NBER Working Papers 10474, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Pierre Azoulay, 2004. "Capturing Knowledge within and across Firm Boundaries: Evidence from Clinical Development," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(5), pages 1591-1612, December.
    2. Gibbons, Robert, 2005. "Four forma(lizable) theories of the firm?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 200-245, October.
    3. Francine Lafontaine & Margaret Slade, 2007. "Vertical Integration and Firm Boundaries: The Evidence," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 45(3), pages 629-685, September.
    4. Paul Walker, 2010. "The (Non)Theory Of The Knowledge Firm," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 57(1), pages 1-32, February.
    5. Amirah El-Haddad, 2008. "Vertical Integration and Institutional Constraints on Firm Behavior: The Case of the Garment Industry in Egypt," Working Papers 383, Economic Research Forum, revised 01 Jan 2008.
    6. Miguel Espinosa, 2021. "Labor Boundaries and Skills: The Case of Lobbyists," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(3), pages 1586-1607, March.
    7. Lim, Wei Shi & Tan, Soo Jiuan, 2010. "Outsourcing suppliers as downstream competitors: Biting the hand that feeds," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 203(2), pages 360-369, June.
    8. Nicholas S. Argyres, 1999. "The Impact of Information Technology on Coordination: Evidence from the B-2 “Stealth” Bomber," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 10(2), pages 162-180, April.
    9. Timothy Bresnahan & Jonathan Levin, 2012. "Vertical Integration and Market Structure [The Handbook of Organizational Economics]," Introductory Chapters,, Princeton University Press.
    10. Amirah El-Haddad, 2013. "Political Patronage and Economic Opportunity: The Case of Vertical Integration in the Egyptian Clothing Industry," Working Papers 797, Economic Research Forum, revised Nov 2013.
    11. Hooper, Louise, 2008. "Paying for performance: Uncertainty, asymmetric information and the payment model," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 157-163, January.
    12. Nicholas S. Argyres & Teppo Felin & Nicolai Foss & Todd Zenger, 2012. "Organizational Economics of Capability and Heterogeneity," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 23(5), pages 1213-1226, October.
    13. Nagaoka, Sadao & Takeishi, Akira & Noro, Yoshihisa, 2008. "Determinants of firm boundaries: Empirical analysis of the Japanese auto industry from 1984 to 2002," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 187-206, June.
    14. Francine Lafontaine & Margaret E. Slade, 1998. "Incentive Contracting and the Franchise Decision," NBER Working Papers 6544, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Laura Alfaro & Nicholas Bloom & Paola Conconi & Harald Fadinger & Patrick Legros & Andrew F. Newman & Raffaella Sadun & John Van Reenen, 2017. "Come Together: Firm Boundaries and Delegation," Harvard Business School Working Papers 18-051, Harvard Business School, revised May 2019.
    16. Rogerio S. Victer, 2020. "Connectivity knowledge and the degree of structural formalization: a contribution to a contingency theory of organizational capability," Journal of Organization Design, Springer;Organizational Design Community, vol. 9(1), pages 1-22, December.
    17. Paul H. Jensen & Robin E. Stonecash, 2004. "The Efficiency of Public Sector Outsourcing Contracts: A Literature Review," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2004n29, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne.
    18. Hermano, Víctor & Martín-Cruz, Natalia, 2013. "How to Deliver Foreign Aid? The Case of Projects Governed by the Spanish International Agency," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 298-314.
    19. Michael, Steven C., 2007. "Transaction cost entrepreneurship," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 412-426, May.
    20. Thiele, Veikko, 2007. "The Demand for Tailored Goods and the Theory of the Firm," MPRA Paper 2471, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J41 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Labor Contracts
    • L22 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Firm Organization and Market Structure

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:10083. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.