Firms' motivations for cooperative R&D: an empirical analysis of Spanish firms

The aim of this paper is to analyze the motives that have caused industrial firms to cooperate in R&D. There are many theoretical works devoted to the theme but few empirical studies have been carried out with large samples t o analyze the factors which determine why firms cooperate in R&D. We first review the reasons offered by the literature to explain technological coope ration, with this allowing us to determine the conceptual framework and to propose some hypotheses. We test these hypotheses with a sample of 1652 Spa nish firms that have carried out R&D activities. The results obtained sugge st that firms' motivations for cooperative R&D are the complexity of techno logy and the fact that innovation is costly and uncertain. We find that in order to undertake cooperative R&D, it is necessary to have certain interna l capacities in this area, with our results being supported by the theory o f absorptive capacity. However, and by contrast with the results presented in other works, questions related to market access and search for opportuni ties do not appear to exert an influence over cooperative R&D. Besides, the large sized firms resort more to cooperation, and the reasons for cooperat ive R&D differ as between large and small sized firms. (C) 2001 Elsevier Sc ience B.V. All rights reserved.