Russian R&D Organisations: Cases Of International Technology Collaboration

Using a case-study approach, this investigation examines international technology partnerships taking Russian R&D organisations for a research sample. The paper has been inspired by the introduction of the liberalisation policy in the Russian Science and Technology (S&T) sector and proliferation of the globalisation approaches in technology management. The central idea of the study is to research international experience gained by Russian R&D organisations after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of the market economy in Russia. The main research goal is to understand perspectives of Russian R&D organisations in establishing partnerships with international companies. The scope of the paper is to gain insight into the nature of organisational inertia hindering Russian R&D establishments from expanding globally through technology partnerships. The paper reports on a comparison of two innovation-oriented companies having experience in customer-supplier and joint venture organisational modes of international technology partnerships. The comparison is based on semi-structured interviews focusing on (1) source, (2) recipient, (3) technology, (4) management, and (5) country-specific attributes selected from the literature. The paper combines a variety of empirical challenges Russian R&D organisations experience going globally. The results reveal that Russian R&D organisations encounter three groups of issues that could be grouped as: (i) neutral, (ii) contributing, or (iii) hindering the establishment of international technology collaboration. The study contributes to the field in technology management through the exploration of inertia Russian science-intensive firms encounter entering global R&D market. Delineation of organisational inertia contingent on modes of international technology partnership is for policy-makers to call for different management attention in the initiation of cooperation projects with R&D organisations from emerging market economies.