Knowledge and strategy in technology alliances

Resumen

As the title of the dissertation -Knowledge and Strategy in Technology Alliances- suggests, this work draws on the intersection of two main disciplines of management: knowledge management and strategic management, and then it further applies the theories developed in these two disciplines to study technology alliances as an increasingly important phenomenon in today¿s business world. The three main chapters of the dissertation each deal with aspects of knowledge structuration and how it plays a role in different types of alliances (e.g. alliances upstream versus downstream to the focal technology firm). In the first chapter, we take the first step by identifying strategic groups of biotechnology firms according to the way they structure their knowledge-bases; and then we ask and try to answer the question: ¿How does these strategies relate to the firm¿s collaborative activities with other organizations?¿ We distinguish between different types of alliances and suggest research propositions that pave the way for the next two chapters. Chapters 2 and 3 are therefore empirical investigations of the theoretical discussion developed in Chapter 1. In chapter 2, we address the following question: ¿How can biotech firms leverage their knowledge resources to retain control in alliance with pharma partners considerably larger than them? How do depth and breadth of the technological resources of the biotech firm affect the alliance governance structure?¿ Finally, in chapter 3, we shift our attention to alliances between the focal biotech firm and universities, and we address the following research question: ¿How does the focal firm¿s orientation towards allying with universities, as opposed to allying with other firms, combines with its knowledge structuration to affect overall innovative outputs from collaborations?¿ The contributions of this dissertation are not limited to explaining inconsistent findings of past research, but also include highlighting the importance of paying attention to knowledge structuration both for researchers and practitioners. Researchers can investigate many types of associations between knowledge structuration and firm and alliance-level variables in different settings, while managers find theoretically developed and empirically proven support for the idea that ¿it is not only the quantity and magnitude of technological resources that matter¿. What matters more for alliance and firm success, is how the managers structure those resources and how they further exploit them in combination with other resources and capabilities.