From Invention Success to Commercialization Success: Technology Ventures and the Benefits of Upstream and Downstream Supply‐Chain Alliances

An entrepreneurial venture's supply‐chain partnerships involve upstream alliances (with research universities) and downstream alliances (with large industry incumbents). Even though such partnerships bring the venture many benefits, they also come with significant challenges, notably the need to seamlessly combine a “technology push” philosophy with a “market pull” one. Utilizing a data set of over both upstream and downstream alliance partnerships spanning 603 technology ventures in the biotech industry, interesting results were found with regard to the impact of these two alliance partnerships on the venture's invention success and commercialization success. Upstream partnerships demonstrate a positive impact on invention success but no significant impact on commercialization success. However, with the moderating role of downstream partnerships, the results change: the joint effect of these two types of alliance partnerships is positive for both invention and commercialization success. The study findings have important implications with regard to the role and impact of alliance partnerships at the intersection of small business, entrepreneurship and technology innovation, and for researchers, practitioners, and policy makers.