The scope and governance of international R&D alliances

Abstract Participants in research and development alliances face a difficult challenge: how to maintain sufficiently open knowledge exchange to achieve alliance objectives while controlling knowledge flows to avoid unintended leakage of valuable technology. Prior research suggests that choosing an appropriate organizational form or governance structure is an important mechanism in achieving a balance between these potentially competing concerns. This does not exhaust the set of possible mechanisms available to alliance partners, however. In this paper we explore an alternative response to hazards of R&D cooperation: reduction of the ‘scope’ of the alliance. We argue that when partner firms are direct…