Assessing the influence of differentiation strategy and R&D subsidies on R&D cooperation

Abstract

This paper explores the R&D cooperation determinants of the innovative companies belonging to the Spanish manufacturing sector. Our findings suggest that the variable R&D subsidy is endogenous, significant, and has a strong positive influence on R&D cooperation. This is a clear indication that the achievement of public aid is often conditioned by the obligation for companies to cooperate in R&D. We have also found that the differentiation strategy variable is significant and has a negative influence on R&D cooperation. Companies positioned in a differentiation strategy probably own and use some different knowledge from other companies. Consequently, they will not have much interest in taking advantage of the spillovers generated by other companies. It is therefore logical that they are reluctant to establish cooperation agreements on R&D. Therefore, companies positioned in the differentiation strategy need public policies to support R&D that are not conditioned to the establishment of cooperation agreements. ARTICLE HISTORY

Relationship between R&D grants, R&D investment, and innovation performance: The moderating effect of absorptive capacity

“…Duguet used data from French companies and confirmed that government support does not crowd out corporate R&D investment (Duguet, 2003). Gonzfilez et al studied the relationship between government R&D grants and corporate R&D investment in 2005 and 2008, respectively and confirmed the effect of government R&D grants on corporate R&D spending was positive and significant (Guisadogonzález, Ferrosoto, & Guisadotato, 2016). Mu Tian studied the effect of public R&D spending on R&D expenditures using a linear regression model.…”

“…Guisado‐Gonzalez considered R&D subsidies endogenous and have a significant positive effect on research and development cooperation. The company that released the differentiation strategy needs more public policy to support R&D (Guisado‐Gonzalez, Ferro‐Soto, & Guisado‐Tato, ). Miranda Victorio built a model of government‐subsidized project selection based on literature and analytic hierarchy process and verified the applicability of the model (Victório, Costa, & Souza, ).…”

Behavioral additionality: the role of cooperation with research institutions in fostering technological maturity of enterprises

“…Its major role in innovation processes stems from the fact that cooperation creates opportunities to gain complementary resources and skills, and as a consequence, can lead to faster development of innovations [Kubera, 2021]. The innovation collaborative network can be established not only with universities or research institutes, but also with industrial actors, including suppliers, users, complementors and even rivals as well [Guisado-González et al, 2016]. Network additionality can be viewed as a firm-level one-off effect, when a beneficiary firm enters into collaboration only to carry out the subsidized project, or a firm-level persistent effect (e.g., due to a public intervention, a firm changes the pattern in which it cooperates with others); or system-level effect, in the form of, for example, improved coordination [Kubera, 2021].…”

Learning by teaching technological knowledge: conceptual skill development in Japanese overseas subsidiaries

“…In country-level spillovers, the typical effect is that the host country receives new knowledge on technology and management indirectly through the local subsidiaries of MNCs (Blomström and Kokko 1998;Glass and Saggi 2002;Nursamsu and Hastiadi 2015;Yi et al 2015;Yunus et al 2015;Zhang et al 2010;Zhao 2021). Prior studies on spillovers at the industry level have been concerned with the effect of firms indirectly obtaining technological knowledge from the R&D activities of competitors in the same industry (Aldieri and Vinci 2017;Audretsch and Belitski 2020;Guisado-González et al 2016;Hájek and Stejskal 2018;Lamin and Ramos 2016;Ramadani et al 2017;Ryu et al 2018;Venturini et al 2019). As for firm-level spillovers, research has been carried out on the effects of headquarters receiving foreign knowledge from returning managers (Tzeng 2018).…”