Multilevel institutional analyses of firm benefits from R&D collaboration

Open innovation research has extensively shown that open innovation strategies influence firms’ performance. It has, however, mostly neglected that the larger institutional context may influence these benefits. To address this gap in the literature, we investigate how the national institutional context influences the benefits a firm may derive from R&D collaborations. Building on institutional theory, we propose that in a national institutional context, a specific collaboration logic develops, underpinned by the design of policy support for innovation as well as knowledge-revealing practices amongst firms. This collaboration logic influences the ability of firms to benefit from R&D collaboration. We theorize that these effects occur due to the influence of national collaboration logics on the nature of firm interaction and organization for innovation. Relying on multilevel analyses of data on 601 European firms, we find that in countries where collaboration logics have been fostered by policy design and knowledge-revealing practices, firms attain greater organizational and product development benefits from R&D collaboration, but relatively lesser networking benefits. We discuss the policy implications of these results.