5
and Podolny and Page, 1998). Research looking specifically into R&D collaboration,
however, tends to focus more on the rationales of inter-organizational alliances and their
formation processes (Doz, Olk, and Ring, 2000), while less on the effects of such
alliances on firm performance.
1
This research will examine explicitly the net effect of
inter-organizational R&D collaboration on firm performance through the analysis of the
Chinese firms.
I use a dataset from a 2001 survey conducted by the World Bank for hypothesis
testing. The survey includes 1,500 Chinese firms from 10 industrial and service sectors
which reflect China’s current or potential competitive strengths. One focus of the survey
is on competitiveness, technology and inter-organizational R&D linkages of the Chinese
firms. Thus, the data allow for both understanding the rationales of the inter-
organizational R&D linkages and a direct analysis of how such linkages affect firm
performance.
This paper is organized as follows. The first part analyzes the institutional
environment in reform era China and proposes the sources and the effects of inter-
organizational R&D collaboration for Chinese firms. The second part discusses the data,
measurement issues, and statistical models used to test the hypotheses. The third part
reports the results from the statistical analyses. The last part is the discussion and
conclusion.
R&D COLLABORATION IN REFORM ERA CHINA: HYPOTHESES
R&D Infrastructure Reform and Division of the Innovative Labor
1
One exception is Powell, Koput, and Smith-Doerr (1996).
Convention