How Do Firms Manage Technology Collaborations?

企业如何管理技术合作？

• 批准号: 0621777
• 负责人: Kathleen Eisenhardt
• 金额: $ 34.09万
• 依托单位: Stanford University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2006
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2006-09-01 至 2010-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0621777&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: How; Do; Firms; Manage; Technology

Since many U.S. firm engage in highly competitive and global markets, the ability to develop technical innovations, infuse them into novel products, and launch them into new businesses is central to the performance of these firms and the national economy broadly. Yet even the largest firms often lack the time and range of technical resources necessary to develop the best innovations, especially when the technologies are intertwined and the markets are fast-paced. Thus, effective technical collaboration across firms becomes essential. But such collaborations are not easy to achieve given the organizational challenges of working across firms (e.g., cultural differences, geographic distances, differences in incentives), and the strategic challenges of the fundamental tension between competition and cooperation that are inherent in collaborations. Yet despite their importance and significant challenges, there is little research into how technology collaborations among firms actually occur, why some work while others do not, and how they extend into novel products and new business creation. Our research addresses this gap. The primary purpose of this project is to examine how organizations successfully create technical innovations using cross-firm collaborations, with an emphasis on routines and processes used for collaborating. Given the limited understanding of how cross-firm technology collaborations are managed, we examine eight comparative case studies of collaborations in depth. This approach is particularly useful for uncovering accurate and yet unexpected insights into complex phenomena. The setting is the computing and communications industries (e.g., semiconductors, networking, software, and Internet security). These are large, dynamic industries that are central to national competitiveness. Also, given their convergent and interdependent nature, these industries are ones in which technical collaborations across firms (e.g., collaborations that combine mobile and microprocessor technologies) are often essential. The focus is on established firms. These firms possess sufficient size to engage in meaningful R&D and sufficient economic scale to influence the national economy. The data include interviews with a range of participants in the collaborating firms, observations, and archival information from multiple sources. The study should yield a deeper understanding of technical collaborations and their effectiveness, and more broadly, of how these collaborations influence significant economic outcomes including creation of novel products and successful engagement in new and growing global markets.

由于许多美国公司从事竞争激烈的全球市场，因此开发技术创新，将其注入新产品并将其推向新业务的能力对于这些公司和国民经济的绩效至关重要。然而，即使是最大的公司也常常缺乏开发最佳创新所需的时间和技术资源范围，尤其是当技术交织在一起并且市场快速发展时。因此，跨公司的有效技术合作变得至关重要。但是，考虑到跨公司工作的组织挑战（例如，文化差异，地理距离，激励措施的差异）以及竞争与合作之间基本张力的战略挑战是合作所固有的，因此这种合作并不容易实现。然而，尽管他们的重要性和重大挑战，但对于公司之间的技术合作是如何实际发生的，为什么有些工作而有些人不做的，以及它们如何扩展到新颖的产品和新的业务创造。我们的研究解决了这一差距。 该项目的主要目的是研究组织如何使用跨公司协作成功创建技术创新，重点是用于协作的例程和流程。鉴于对如何管理跨公司技术合作的理解有限，我们研究了八个对合作的比较案例研究。这种方法对于发现对复杂现象的准确但出乎意料的见解特别有用。设置是计算和通信行业（例如，半导体，网络，软件和Internet安全）。这些是大型，充满活力的行业，是国家竞争力的核心。同样，鉴于它们的收敛性和相互依存的性质，这些行业是跨公司的技术合作（例如，将移动和微处理器技术相结合的合作）通常至关重要。重点是成熟的公司。这些公司拥有足够的规模来进行有意义的研发和足够的经济规模来影响国民经济。数据包括与来自多个来源的合作公司，观察结果和档案信息的众多参与者的访谈。这项研究应对技术合作及其有效性有更深入的了解，以及这些合作如何影响重要的经济成果，包括创造新产品和成功参与新的和不断发展的全球市场。