Cooperative Innovation Projects: Capabilities and Governance Mechanisms
This paper is concerned with how firms in a project‐based industry cooperate in technological innovation projects in the construction industry. The main focus of the paper is on the sharing of capabilities in cooperative innovation projects and how these cooperations are governed. A knowledge‐based...
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Published in | The Journal of product innovation management Vol. 26; no. 1; pp. 58 - 70 |
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Main Authors | , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
Malden, USA
Blackwell Publishing Inc
01.01.2009
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Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | This paper is concerned with how firms in a project‐based industry cooperate in technological innovation projects in the construction industry. The main focus of the paper is on the sharing of capabilities in cooperative innovation projects and how these cooperations are governed. A knowledge‐based perspective is applied, and four cooperative innovation projects in the construction industry are compared. Based on the case studies, a set of propositions is defined. First, a cooperation aimed at a mutual strategic benefit in mutually gaining access to the knowledge bases of the involved firms, while maintaining their own differentiated knowledge base, can result in more stable and long term relationships with mutual trust between the cooperating firms. Second, in a cooperation aimed at a mutual strategic benefit in mutually gaining access to the knowledge bases of the involved firms, partners not only gain access to each other's technological capabilities but also develop and share knowledge about organizational aspects and market situations and gain knowledge about the way of working of the partner firm. Third, in a cooperation aimed at mutual strategic benefit in mutually gaining access to the knowledge bases of the involved firms, noncodifiability of the capabilities is conditional to create a win–win situation. And fourth, cooperation aimed at a mutual strategic benefit in mutually gaining access to the knowledge bases of the involved firms is based on mutual competence and intentional trust as its main governance mechanism, whereas contracting between market parties aimed at knowledge–output transactions is represented by limited trust and arms' length (contractual) relationships as its main governance mechanism. |
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Bibliography: | We would like to thank the editor Anthony Di Benedetto and two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and support on two earlier versions of the paper. Their comments contributed to considerable improvements. ark:/67375/WNG-04MQJ4TQ-N istex:B056703B7210CCF4C483DA052BE4C0C5E71CA594 ArticleID:JPIM334 * ObjectType-Article-2 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-1 content type line 23 |
ISSN: | 0737-6782 1540-5885 |
DOI: | 10.1111/j.1540-5885.2009.00334.x |