Trust relationships within R&D networks: A case study from the biotechnological industry

摘要

Industrial globalization is spurring the development of linkages among manufacturers. Research and development cooperation becomes increasingly valuable as it allows manufacturers to share the costs and risks of pursuing innovation and developing new technologies. However, as R&D cooperation involves knowledge exchange and resource sharing, cooperative fi rms may face the risk of confi dential information leakage and of misappropriation hazards. Trust among partners, therefore, is critical to the performance of R&D cooperation and network. Th is paper aims to identify the relationship between trust and fi rm performance in R&D cooperation. Questionnaires and Structural Equation Modeling are used to untangle this relationship among biotechnology manufacturers in Taiwan. Our results show that specifi c assets, formal contracts and informal exchanges among R&D cooperative partners all aff ect inter-organizational trust. More precisely, R&D assets created from combining the above three factors also have a positive relationship with interorganizational trust, which could further promote fi rm performance.