29 -
2002STEFANO COMINO
On the governance form of R& D alliances: joint ventures and contractual agreements
ABSTRACT
Di¤erences in the ability to absorb the partner’s know-how alter
the distribution of the bargaining power within an alliance. In the
paper, I study the impact of this fact on the performances of two typical
modes of organizing an alliance, namely Joint Ventures (JVs) and
Contractual Agreements (CAs). In the model, only in the latter case
know-how absorption plays a role. This implies that, at an intermediate
step of the alliance, in case of a CA a bargaining process takes
place. I prove that the transfer that arises during this phase increases
the e¢ciency the alliance if the partner whose contribution is most
relevant is also the one with the largest absorptive capacity. Moreover,
the more asymmetric the partners’ absorptive capacities are, the
more hazardous is the use of a CA.
JEL classi…cation: O32, L22, D23.
Key-words: Joint Ventures, Alliances, Absorptive Capacity.
¤I would like to thank my advisor David Peréz-Castrillo, Inés Macho-Stadler, Joel
Sandonís and Reinhilde Veugelers for helpful comments on earlier versions of the paper.
I am also grateful to the participants at the workshops at the Universitat Autonoma
de Barcelona, Katolieke Universiteit of Leuven, Jornadas de Economia Industrial
(Madrid), Simposio de Analisis Economico (Barcelona), E.A.R.I.E. Conference
(Dublin). The address for correspondence is: Stefano Comino, Università di Padova,
Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche, via del Santo, 33 -35123 Padova - Italia. E-mail:
comino@decon.unipd.it.
