Heterogeneity in R&D cooperation strategies

Abstract. This paper assesses the performance effects of simultaneous engagement in R&D cooperation with different partners (competitors, clients, suppliers, and universities and research institutes). We test whether these different types of R&D cooperation are com-plements in improving productivity. The results suggest that the joint adoption of cooper-ation strategies could be either beneficial or detrimental to firm performance, depending on firm size and specific strategy combinations. Customer cooperation helps to increase market acceptance and diffusion of product innovations and enhances the impact of com-petitor and university cooperation. On the other hand, smaller firms also face diseco-nomies in pursuing multiple R&D cooperation strategies, which may stem from higher costs and complexity of simultaneously managing multiple partnerships with different innovation objectives. Key words: innovation, productivity, R&D cooperation. JEL Classifications: O31, O32. I