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Network Capitalism and the Role of Strategy, Contracts and Performance Expectations for Asia-Pacific Innovation Partnerships

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Book cover Innovation in the Asia Pacific

Abstract

With the growth of emerging economies in Asia-Pacific over the last three decades collaboration with the aim of innovation between firms within and with partners outside the region have developed substantially. Not always have such partnerships fulfilled their anticipated strategic objectives. The literature suggests that the nature of market arrangements and the role of government within that system play a role, but also innate contracting practices and governance of innovation partnerships are related. Yet, our understanding about the specific relationships between these factors and the emerging partnership innovation culture that facilitates joint business activities in an Asia-Pacific context remains vague. In this conceptual chapter we suggest how characteristics of so called network capitalism in conjunction with the nature of contractual agreements between partners, the alignment of their innovation objectives and the ambiguity inherent in their mutual contributions to the partnership can be interpreted as indicators of joint innovation culture. However, while innovation partnerships generally may result to be bureaucratic, market, clan, or adhocracy, we discuss how in an Asia Pacific context, innovation partnerships are limited by the extent of codification and diffusion of information and the social embeddedness of economic transactions.

Research for this paper was aided by support from the Management Discipline Group and the Centre for Management and Organization Studies at the University of Technology Sydney.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Asset specificity is the extent of the partners’ transaction-specific investments for the partnership; prior ties captures the role of previous partnerships; time boundedness is about the duration to operate the initiative; strategic importance is about the significance that partners give to their collaborative venture; and, finally, partner search concerns the costs that are associated with finding, evaluating, and negotiating with potential partners.

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  1. Centre for Business and Social Innovation, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, Australia

    Jochen Schweitzer

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    Thomas Clarke

  2. Department of Economics, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea (Republic of)

    Keun Lee

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Schweitzer, J. (2018). Network Capitalism and the Role of Strategy, Contracts and Performance Expectations for Asia-Pacific Innovation Partnerships. In: Clarke, T., Lee, K. (eds) Innovation in the Asia Pacific. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-5895-0_9

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