INTERORGANIZATIONAL COLLABORATION AND THE LOCUS OF INNOVATION - NETWORKS OF LEARNING IN BIOTECHNOLOGY

We argue in this paper that when the knowledge base of an industry is both complex and expanding and the sources of expertise are widely dis persed, the locus of innovation will be found in networks of learning, rather than in individual firms. The large-scale reliance on interorg anizational collaborations in the biotechnology industry reflects a fu ndamental and pervasive concern with access to knowledge. We develop a network approach to organizational learning and derive firm-level, lo ngitudinal hypotheses that link research and development alliances, ex perience with managing interfirm relationships, network position, rate s of growth, and portfolios of collaborative activities. We test these hypotheses on a sample of dedicated biotechnology firms in the years 1990-1994. Results from pooled, within-firm, time series analyses supp ort a learning view and have broad implications for future theoretical and empirical research on organizational networks and strategic allia nces..