Innovation, alliances, and networks in high-tech environments

10.4324/9781315727356

Recent decades have been characterized by an increasing number of strategic alliances, mergers and acquisitions and more general collaborative networks. This phenomenon has primarily involved knowledge-intensive and high-tech industries where innovation is a key competitive weapon. This book focuses on the role of these partnerships and provides new insights into how they contribute to increasing innovation performance. Despite their growing popularity, there are few contributions that examine these collaborative strategies. Existing studies tend to investigate the impact of alliances on financial performance, providing insight into the development and deployment of alliances, or exploring the governance of strategic alliances and mergers and acquisitions. This book fills this gap in existing literature by examining specific contributions of the absorptive capacity of firms, knowledge networks and spillovers. This book will be of interest to graduate students and researchers interested in Industrial Economics, Strategic Management and Management of Technology and Innovation.