Nonlinear Effects of Inter Firm Competition on Innovation in Cooperative Research Networks

Cooperative R&D Consortia (CRDC) are collaborative partnerships composed of multiple organizations (e.g. firms, universities, research institutes), pooling resources, knowledge and expertise to pursue common research and innovation. The aim of this research is to explore how CRDC affects organizational innovation performance through knowledge sharing mechanisms and network structure. This study seeks to evaluate the effect of participation in these consortia on firms’ innovation outcomes and the determinants of successful collaboration. The research is based on a mixed method approach with surveys of firms interacting with CRDC and social network analysis to map collaboration patterns. Our results show that CRDC firms with formalized, robust communication structures and supported knowledge sharing practices have more innovation capabilities. The network enhances firms at central positions in the network’s access to these diverse knowledge streams, and the rates of patent filings and product innovations increase. Unfortunately, smaller firms fail to fully leverage these benefits as they lack absorptive capacity. These results underline the relevance of good governance structures and fair knowledge exchange to fully exploit CRDC's innovative potential.