Incentives to Form Research Joint Ventures I

Abstract

What are the reasons firms may want to participate in RJVs? What are the factors underlying the tendency of modern management teams to enroll their companies in increasing numbers of joint R&D organizations? In their important work fifteen years ago, Berg, Duncan and Friedman (1982) dealt with a similar question. Both their study and my study are based on samples of joint ventures spanning eleven years of cooperative industrial activity. The two studies refer to cooperative activity twenty years apart (1965-1975 to 1985-1995 respectively). However, whereas their sample included all types of joint ventures, 1 concentrate on joint ventures where the only, or primary, joint activity is R&D. Moreover, whereas their joint ventures were in mining and manufacturing industries, my sample of research joint ventures also includes many in the service industries.