IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/upf/upfgen/327.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The organization of research corporations and researcher ability

Author

Listed:
  • Bruno Cassiman

Abstract

This paper analyzes the formation of Research Corporations as an alternative governance structure for performing R&D compared to pursuing in-house R&D projects. Research Corporations are private for-profit research centers that bring together several firms with similar research goals. In a Research Corporation formal authority over the choice of projects is jointly exercised by the top management of the member firms. A private for-profit organization cannot commit not to interfere with the project choice of the researchers. However, increasing the number of member firms of the Research Corporation reduces the incentive of member firms to meddle with the research projects of researchers because exercising formal authority over the choice of research projects is a public good. The Research Corporation thus offers researchers greater autonomy than a single firm pursuing an identical research program in its in-house R&D department. This attracts higher ability researchers to the Research Corporation compared to the internal R&D department. The paper uses the theoretical model to analyze the organization of the Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MCC). The facts of this case confirm the existence of a tension between control over the choice of research projects and the ability of researchers that the organization is able to attract or hold onto.

Suggested Citation

  • Bruno Cassiman, 1998. "The organization of research corporations and researcher ability," Economics Working Papers 327, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
  • Handle: RePEc:upf:upfgen:327
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://econ-papers.upf.edu/papers/327.pdf
    File Function: Whole Paper
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bruce Kogut, 1988. "Joint ventures: Theoretical and empirical perspectives," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 9(4), pages 319-332, July.
    2. Rotemberg, Julio J & Saloner, Garth, 1994. "Benefits of Narrow Business Strategies," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(5), pages 1330-1349, December.
    3. Sakakibara, Mariko, 1997. "Evaluating government-sponsored R&D consortia in Japan: who benefits and how?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 26(4-5), pages 447-473, December.
    4. Vonortas, Nicholas S., 1997. "Research joint ventures in the US," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 26(4-5), pages 577-595, December.
    5. Aghion, Philippe & Tirole, Jean, 1997. "Formal and Real Authority in Organizations," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(1), pages 1-29, February.
    6. Philippe Aghion & Jean Tirole, 1994. "The Management of Innovation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 109(4), pages 1185-1209.
    7. Aldrich, Howard E. & Sasaki, Toshihiro, 1995. "R&D consortia in the United States and Japan," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 301-316, March.
    8. Yermack, David, 1996. "Higher market valuation of companies with a small board of directors," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 185-211, February.
    9. repec:ner:ucllon:http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/17678/ is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Julio J. Rotemberg & Garth Saloner, 1993. "Leadership Style and Incentives," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 39(11), pages 1299-1318, November.
    11. Bruce Kogut, 1991. "Joint Ventures and the Option to Expand and Acquire," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 37(1), pages 19-33, January.
    12. Gatignon, Hubert & Anderson, Erin, 1988. "The Multinational Corporation's Degree of Control over Foreign Subsidiaries: An Empirical Test of a Transaction Cost Explanation," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 4(2), pages 305-336, Fall.
    13. Peck, Merton J., 1986. "Joint R&D: The case of microelectronics and computer technology corporation," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 15(5), pages 219-231, October.
    14. Dosi, Giovanni, 1988. "Sources, Procedures, and Microeconomic Effects of Innovation," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 26(3), pages 1120-1171, September.
    15. Jean-François Hennart, 1991. "The Transaction Costs Theory of Joint Ventures: An Empirical Study of Japanese Subsidiaries in the United States," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 37(4), pages 483-497, April.
    16. Richard C. Levin & Alvin K. Klevorick & Richard R. Nelson & Sidney G. Winter, 1987. "Appropriating the Returns from Industrial Research and Development," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 18(3, Specia), pages 783-832.
    17. Eisenberg, Theodore & Sundgren, Stefan & Wells, Martin T., 1998. "Larger board size and decreasing firm value in small firms," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 35-54, April.
    18. Richard C. Levin & Alvin K. Klevorick & Richard R. Nelson & Sidney G. Winter, 1988. "Appropriating the Returns from Industrial R&D," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 862, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Cuypers, I.R.P., 2009. "Essays on equity joint ventures, uncertainty and experience," Other publications TiSEM 8dc79e86-c625-467f-a450-8, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    2. Manuel Portugal Ferreira & Cláudia Frias Pinto & Fernando Ribeiro Serra, 2014. "The transaction costs theory in international business research: a bibliometric study over three decades," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 98(3), pages 1899-1922, March.
    3. Mihir A. Desai & C. Fritz Foley & James R. Hines Jr., 2002. "International Joint Ventures and the Boundaries of the Firm," NBER Working Papers 9115, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Najib Harabi, 2002. "The Impact of Vertical R&D Cooperation on Firm Innovation: An Empirical Investigation," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(2), pages 93-108.
    5. Aikaterini KOKKINOU, 2010. "Economic growth, innovation and collaborative research and development activities," Management & Marketing, Economic Publishing House, vol. 5(1), Spring.
    6. Sakakibara, Mariko, 2001. "Cooperative research and development: who participates and in which industries do projects take place?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 30(7), pages 993-1018, August.
    7. Timothy B. Folta & Walter J. Ferrier, 1997. "International Expansion Through Sequential Investment: The Effects Of National Culture On Buyouts And Dissolutions In Biotechnology Partnerships," Game Theory and Information 9701001, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Sakakibara, Mariko, 1997. "Evaluating government-sponsored R&D consortia in Japan: who benefits and how?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 26(4-5), pages 447-473, December.
    9. Cristina López-Duarte & Esteban García-Canal, 1998. "La estructura de propiedad de la inversión directa exterior," Investigaciones Economicas, Fundación SEPI, vol. 22(1), pages 19-44, January.
    10. Cassiman, Bruno & Ueda, Masako, 2002. "Optimal Project Rejection and New Firm Start-Ups," CEPR Discussion Papers 3429, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    11. Jae C. Jung & Paul W. Beamish & Anthony Goerzen, 2008. "FDI Ownership Strategy: A Japanese-US MNE Comparison," Management International Review, Springer, vol. 48(5), pages 491-524, November.
    12. Reuer, Jeffrey J. & Ariño, Africa, 2000. "Governance changes in strategic alliances: Antecedents of contractual renegotiations," IESE Research Papers D/415, IESE Business School.
    13. Maurseth, Per Botolf & Svensson, Roger, 2020. "The Importance of Tacit Knowledge: Dynamic Inventor Activity in the Commercialization Phase," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(7).
    14. Robert Dur & Ola Kvaløy & Anja Schöttner, 2022. "Leadership Styles and Labor Market Conditions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(4), pages 3150-3168, April.
    15. Trajtenberg, M., 1992. "Ivory Tower Versus Corporate Lab : An Empirical Study of Basic Research and Appropriability," Papers 15-92, Tel Aviv.
    16. Gamal Atallah, 2002. "Vertical R&D Spillovers, Cooperation, Market Structure, and Innovation," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(3), pages 179-209.
    17. Javalgi, Rajshekhar (Raj) G. & Deligonul, Seyda & Ghosh, Amit K. & Lambert, Douglas M. & Cavusgil, S. Tamer, 2010. "Foreign market entry mode behavior as a gateway to further entries: The NAFTA experience," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 209-222, June.
    18. Cristina López-Duarte & Marta Vidal-Suárez, 2008. "Foreign direct investment through partial acquisitions: hostage effect or conflicts enhancement," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 12(3), pages 287-308, August.
    19. Park, Gunno & Kim, Marco JinHwan & Kang, Jina, 2015. "Competitive embeddedness: The impact of competitive relations among a firm's current alliance partners on its new alliance formations," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 196-208.
    20. Powell, K. Skylar & Lim, Eunah, 2017. "Investment motive as a moderator of cultural-distance and relative knowledge relationships with foreign subsidiary ownership structure," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 255-262.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Research and development; cooperation; research joint ventures; research corporations; monitoring; ability; organizational design;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D23 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Organizational Behavior; Transaction Costs; Property Rights
    • L22 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Firm Organization and Market Structure
    • O32 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Management of Technological Innovation and R&D

    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:upf:upfgen:327. 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: http://www.econ.upf.edu/ .

    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.