مقاله سال ۲۰۱۶

Strategic collaboration facilitates pooling of complementary skills, learning from the partner as well as sharing risks and costs. There have been a large number of literature examining impacts of strategic alliance on firm level innovation (Ahuja, 2000a; Brown and Eisenhardt, 1995; Dodgson, 1992; Duysters and Hagedoorn, 1998; George et al., 2002; McGill and Santoro, 2009; Smith et al., 1991). It is suggested in literature that strategic collaboration allows firms to access strategic assets (Baum et al., 2000; Teece, 1992), complementary technology (Duysters and Hagedoorn, 1998; Mohnen and Hoareau, 2003) and opportunity of learning from collaborators and suppliers (Fritsch, 2002; Simonin, 1999a,b).

The multinational enterprises and its vehicle, foreign direct investment, are key forces in globalized economy (Brakman and Garretsen, 2008). Foreign direct investment which has grown more rapidly since 1990 is the critical driver of international R&D collaboration. The international collaboration is enhanced by reduced air travel cost, international communication cost and seeking for greater efficiency as growing competition in domestic and international markets forces firms to become efficient and competitive. International flow of information, technology, capital, goods, services, people have deepened global supply chain and global interdependence through which world economic growth and living standard can be advanced (Bohnstedt et al., 2012; Ernst and Kim, 2002; Hsu et al., 2015).

International R&D collaboration is investigated in literature to examine absorptive capacity and technology learning (Kim and Inkpen, 2005), opportunities and limitations (Narula, 2004), home and host innovation systems (Criscuolo et al., 2002), collaborative research in developed countries (Georghiou, 1998; Van Beers et al., 2008), collaboration between developed and developing countries (Srivastava et al., 2013), collaboration in developing countries (Li, 2010). International R&D collaboration is one of common form of international business activities which include foreign direct investment, joint ventures and strategic alliances (Moore and Lewis, 1999). Although international R&D collaboration is perceived as an important R&D strategy (Hsu et al., 2015), the significance of international R&D collaboration varies by regions. For example, East Asia is one of the most successful regional economies (Abbott, 2003) with extensive R&D collaboration among Taiwan, Japan, Korea, and China (Tsukada and Nagaoka, 2011).