La colaboración empresarial desde la teoría de los derechos de propiedad

This paper investigates the selection of governance forms in interfirm collaborations taking into account the predictions from transaction costs and property rights theories. Transaction costs agurments are often used to justify the introduction of hierarchical controls in collaborations, but the ownership dimensions of going from "contracts" to "hierarchies" has been ignored in the past and with it the so called "costs of ownership". The theoretical results, tested with a sample of collaborations in which Spanish firms participate, indicate that the cost of ownership may o set the benefits of hierarchial controls and therefore limit their diffusion. Evidence is also reported of possible complementarities between reputation effects and forms of ownership that go together with hierarchical controls (i.e. joint ventures), in contrast with the generally assumed substitutability between the two. (Copyright: Fundación Empresa Pública)