Seminar on Technology Strategy
Session 8 : R&D Management
ODI-OM 석사 1 학기 이상민
Feldman, M. P., & Kelley, M. R. (2006). The ex-ante assessment of knowledge spillovers:
Government R&D policy, economic incentives and private firm behavior. Research Policy, 35(10),
1509-1521.
The purpose of the paper is to identify the project and firm attributes, which
perhaps is the driver of knowledge spillovers and use the data to estimate the degree
to which the government R&D subsidy conforms. According to the author, cooperative
R&D projects, which are considered to be voluntary and reciprocal information
sharing mechanisms, could enhance the firm learning and subsequent performance.
Cooperative R&D projects involve knowledge spillovers among firms so
understanding the knowledge spillovers is related to the understanding of the
connections between firms. Firms share knowledge by using informal relationship
pathways and these might increase the spillover. However, the firms are reluctant to
participate in these collaborations because of the high rate of risk and cost saving
burden. Thus, the government can support these R&D activities to motivate the firms
to invest in the collaborative R&D projects. For the government, the subsidy could be
used as incentives for such firms to engage in behaviors that stimulate the economic
growth. The methodology used in the paper was survey and the firm attributes
related to the knowledge spillover such as university linkages, business linkages and
willingness to share research results are tested statistically. The result of the paper
showed that the more supportive linkage and openness in communicating research,
the great degree of obtaining the government subsidy.
Through the paper I learned that the knowledge spillover might be the proxy and
estimator for government to select the most appropriate firm to support. However, it
is doubtful that the linkage with university was statistically insignificant. The authors
allege that it is because all of the firms that applied to the government R&D program
had strong connections to universities, but I think as universities are the very rich
source of knowledge, this factor might have implication in some way. For example, if
the authors should have tested this factor considering the awareness of the university
performance in specific field of research the firm R&D was engaged in.
Tripsas, M., Schrader, S., & Sobrero, M. (1995). Discouraging opportunistic behavior in
collaborative R & D: A new role for government. Research Policy,24(3), 367-389.
The goal of the paper is to identify a new role for government in facilitating
collaborative R&D projects. According to the authors he preceding studies focused on
the government’s institutional role as funding in collaborative R&D projects. The
authors allege that government can also paly a administrative role in controlling and
discouraging opportunistic behavior of firms, which can be a major barrier to the
formation and effective operation of the projects. In the paper, authors adopt
transactional cost framework to show government ability of reducing the ex ante and
ex post transaction cost attributed to collaborative R&D through institutional and
administrative mechanisms. To empirically test the issue, the authors use a method of
survey among 39 firms, which are members of Italian Societa di Ricerca. The main
contributions of the paper are : 1) Government can control the opportunistic behavior
in collaborative R&D 2) Firms recognize and value the institutional and administrative
role of the government. 3) The firms’ experience of prior participation in
collaborative R&D affects the valuation of government involvement. For firms with
prior experience, they valued less on government’s institutional role of establishing a
framework for cooperation as they learned to manage the know how of initial
organization process of the collaborative R&D.(Ex ante consideration) However, the
firms still valued the administrative role of government in controlling the
opportunism.(Ex post consideration). For firms with no prior experience, they valued
the role of government as source of funding(institutional) as a significantly more
important role than the administrative role(Controlling opportunism). Based on these
results, the authors allege further implications that 1) Even though the government
can play a significant role in collaborative R&D, the government itself can not be free
of its own agenda and have some favoring approaches and solutions that might inhibit
the government from fulfilling the roles. 2) Government may favor specific actors in
the collaborative R&D, which in the case of small firms, a threat 3) Cost of
government involvement may be an issue. 4) Other parties rather than the
government can play the institutional and administrative role (Such as industry
associations or universities.).
Through the paper, I recognized and learned about the government role in
collaborative R&D projects among firms. I first thought that the critical roles of the
government in these situations are limited to selection of the firms who will
participate in the project and the funding. The new approach of viewing the
government role of controlling the ex post opportunism issue was creative. However,
I think as the result of the empirical test was derived only from 39 firms in a certain
program, it might containt some bias. The authors’ argument about the difference of
valuation of firms about the government should be considered again as it is the result
only from the Italian Societa di Ricerca. Also, as the author mentioned, the
government’s internal issue such as its own agenda or preference of specific firms
and cost should be tested in other country or groups of firms to be accepted generally.
Carayol, N. (2003). Objectives, agreements and matching in science–industry collaborations:
reassembling the pieces of the puzzle. Research Policy, 32(6), 887-908.
The paper argues that existing and preceding studies of science industry collaborations have
been limited to partial view of the phenomenon. That is, most of the studies on the domain
did concern only on restricted dimensions of the issue by focusing only on the one of the
partners(academics side or firms side) or on contractual agreements. As a result, there might
be some missing implications about how the different partners’ strategies fit together in
collaborations. So, the goal of the paper is to view the issue in the integrated way by
investigating the collaboration from both academic sides and firm sides. The authors call this
as ‘reassembling the pieces of the puzzle’. The paper uses 46 collaboration data(interview)
from EU and US countries to test the issue empirically. The paper has two main contributions.
First, the paper provides the typology of science-industry collaborations built on MCA(MultiCorrespondence Analysis), suggesting five types of collaborations;1) Axe1(Risk, novelty and
basicness of the research) & Axe2(Networked research) 2) Axe3(Start ups) &
Axe4(Organizational structuration of the relation). Second, based on the typology, the paper
proposes a rationale for understanding the matching of potential academics and firms. The
authors allege that this leads to assortative matching hypothesis
The typology provide by the paper, which was very concrete and based on preceding logical
method, was very creative and persuading. However, as authors them selves say, the size of
the sample (46 firms) is too small that although it could be categorized in to 5 types following
the typology suggested in the paper, it could have some problems of sample bias. Also I felt
that the paper is only focusing on the ‘matching’ issue of the collaboration although the
authors said that they are trying to investigate the issue by considering the both dimensions of
academic side and firm side.