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The purpose of this paper is to present a review of the empirical literature on inter‐organizational R&D collaborations in order to highlight the tendencies in research methodologies so far and to identify possible future research directions.

The literature review is based on a bibliographical search of a number of academic search engines. These sources include all the major management, organizational behavior, marketing, engineering, sociology, and psychology journals, thus ensuring a thorough search on the topic of inter‐organizational R&D. The review includes papers from 1995 to 2010.

The main focus of research on inter‐organizational R&D is on innovation performance enablers, organizational and coordination aspects, and knowledge exchange. The vast majority of which is based on snapshot studies at the management or firm level of analysis that leave open questions regarding the actual inter‐organizational innovation practices. To fill the gap evidenced in the literature, the author concludes that longitudinal qualitative micro‐level research would help to expand existing knowledge on the practices in inter‐organizational R&D.

The paper proposes a practice‐based research framework for future studies of inter‐organizational R&D, in order to gain a better understanding of the social dynamics of such collaborations.

This paper focuses on empirical research in the area of inter‐organizational R&D, and links the methodological approaches used to the limitations in the knowledge base of the topic.

This paper aims to focus on time-constrained interactions involving industry and public actors, mainly universities, conducting research. This kind of interaction has become increasingly important to develop new pharmaceuticals, especially antibiotics. The proposed theoretical frame relies on industrial marketing and purchasing’s interactive perspective on inter-organizational relationships and especially the activities, resource, actors model, combined with key concepts on temporary organizing and project management. This study identifies the temporality and time constraints imposed by this project on public–private interactions, specific coordination tools used to create such temporality and time constraints and their consequences, including positive and negative effects for the interacting parties.

The study builds on a single in-depth qualitative case study of a major antibiotics R&D collaboration project called ENABLE.

For negative consequences, this model includes the need for constantly rebuilding trust due to fast turnover of actors, difficulties in combining resources as efficiently as possible, resource constraints, bottlenecks and neglect of some activities, such as publishing, which are normally pivotal for universities. Despite these problematic consequences of temporality, resources are rapidly made available and new competencies learned quickly. Another positive effect is the possibility to achieve complex adaptations of resources and activities even in short time frames. Importantly, projects can act as a springboard for the parties to continue collaboration and in the long term develop a continuous business relationship.

Based on the findings the authors develop a model of time-constrained inter-organizational interaction between public and private organizations.

This paper aims to examine the effects of task and relationship conflicts on team creativity, and the moderating role of shared leadership in inter-organizational teams. An inter-organizational team normally comprises employees from collaborated organizations brought together to conduct an initiative, such as product development. Practitioners and researchers have witnessed the prevalence of conflict in inter-organizational teams. Despite significant scholarly investigation into the importance of conflict in creativity, a deep theoretical understanding of conflict framework remains elusive.

A questionnaire survey was conducted in China to collect data. Consequently, 54 teams, which comprised 54 team managers and 276 team members, were deemed useful for the study.

By testing our hypotheses on 54 inter-organizational teams, we found that relationship conflict has a negative relationship with team creativity, whereas task conflict has an inverted U-shaped (curvilinear) relationship with team creativity. Furthermore, when shared leadership is stronger, the negative relationship with team creativity is weaker for relationship conflict, whereas the inverted U-shaped relationship with team creativity is stronger for task conflict.

The main limitation is cross-sectional, which cannot establish causality in relationships. Despite this potential weakness, the present research provides insights into conflict, leadership and inter-organizational collaboration literature.

The findings of this study offer some guidance on how managers can intervene in the conflict situations of inter-organizational teams.

Managers are struggling to identify ways to effectively manage team conflict when a team of diverse individuals across organizational boundaries are brought together to solve a problem. The findings of this study offer some guidance on how managers can intervene in the conflict situations of inter-organizational teams.

This paper provides understandings about how relationship and task conflicts affect team creativity in inter-organizational teams.

This article compares inter-organizational (IO) interaction and inter-organizational information systems (IOS) to support IO interaction in public and private sectors. The purpose of the article is to explore and discuss differences and similarities between e-government and e-business focusing IOS and interaction. This is done in order to facilitate learning between the two fields. The point of departure is two case studies performed in private and public sectors.

A comparative study of two cases in two sectors (private and public) is conducted. IO concepts from industrial markets that characterize an IO relationship (continuity, complexity, symmetry, and formality) and concepts that describe dimensions of such relationships (links, bonds, and ties) are used as analytical lenses. The empirical case study data, mainly generated from interviews, have been analyzed in a qualitative, interpretive way, using these central IO concepts from industrial markets (the IMP approach). This approach is in line with a strategy to use theory as a part of an iterative process of data collection and analysis.

The findings in the present study show that there are several similarities concerning interaction in relations between organizations in the two sectors. There are also differences depending on the level of analysis (empirical level vs analytical level). The study shows the need to be explicit regarding organizational value, end-customer or client/citizen value and the type of objects that are exchanged in the interaction. This is presented in the article together with suggested refinements of the analytical framework used for understanding IO interaction. The latter finding is a contribution to the general field of interaction and network studies and also a contribution to the e-government field.

This article is a point of departure to facilitate learning between the public and the private sectors focusing on IO relations and IOS. Learning between the two sectors is needed for researchers in the two areas as well as policy makers and practitioners developing e-government interaction and IOS.

There are few articles addressing learning between the private and the public sector within the e-government area. Not at least when focusing IO issues. There is also a tendency that wheels are reinvented in the sectors and in the e-government research area. An important initiative in this article is to contribute in filling this gap by providing examples of a comparative analysis as well as understanding of how to perform such analyses of IO interaction.

The vast majority of evidence about knowledge management (KM) is based on studies within a mass‐producing context and at intra‐organizational level. Little has been reported in the complex products and systems (CoPS) literature about KM processes across firm boundaries. To contribute to this gap, this paper reviews the literature of CoPS, inter‐organizational collaboration and KM, discusses some challenges of inter‐organization KM faced by CoPS manufacturers, and explores a research framework which is helpful to provide a preliminary understanding of inter‐organizational KM within a CoPS context.

Literature review and research experience are presented.

The study has identified some challenges faced by CoPS manufacturers when they try to manage knowledge from an innovative network, and developed a framework extending KM processes into an inter‐firm collaborative network for CoPS development. Both, project level collaboration and firm level linkages need to be taken into consideration when attempting to implement KM at inter‐organizational level. Knowledge acquisition from network, knowledge integration, and knowledge sharing in the network are the main inter‐organizational KM activities in a CoPS context.

As KM based on inter‐organizational collaboration has received little attention in prior studies, especially in CoPS conditions, this study is an exploratory discussion of KM issues within a CoPS context, combining the cross‐school theories of inter‐organizational linkages, KM and CoPS innovation. This paper tries to account for knowledge‐related activities involved in CoPS development, identifying some challenges in CoPS innovation.

While previous studies have primarily assumed dysfunctional effects of cultural distance in joint ventures and M&A, this paper elucidates from a positive organizational scholarship perspective how perceived cultural distance can advance firms’ new product development within non-equity alliances. The purpose of this paper is to explain how perceived cultural distance stimulates task discourse that supports alliance partners’ employees in recognizing and applying culture-related differences as complementary problem-solving potentials. Due to a lower integration level in non-equity alliances compared to joint ventures or M&A, this paper assumes that the positive effects outweigh the negative effects of cultural distance.

This study applies structural equation modeling to test the hypothesized effects on a sample of 246 international alliances in the manufacturing industry.

The analysis mainly supports the hypothesized model and unravels how positive effects can emerge from perceived cultural distance.

The findings provide managerial implications. Alliance managers should note that cultural distance can have positive and negative effects, and thus it is not a barrier per se in alliances. Firms can benefit from cultural distance if they are able to leverage culture-specific complementarities through task discourse among partners in alliances.

The manuscript uses a unique data set of 246 international alliances from the global manufacturing industry. The manuscript has not been published elsewhere.

This paper uses the relational capabilities perspective to provide new insights into the mediating role of relational capabilities and their performance implications. Specially, this paper aims to explain how characteristics of a partnership influence relational capabilities that in turn enhance firm performance.

Using data from an original survey of 156 partnership projects between buyers and suppliers in the Thai manufacturing sector, the authors use a structural model to test their hypotheses.

The empirical analysis shows that the impact of relational and economic attributes of a partnership on firm performance is mediated by knowledge sharing routines and complementary capability. However, the impact varies between operational and strategic performance, as relational capabilities are strongly associated with operational performance but only indirectly associated with strategic performance.

The need to coordinate and mobilize complementary resources not only increases the interdependence between buyers and suppliers but also contributes to firm performance. Specifically, operations can be enhanced by knowledge sharing routines and complementary capability. At a strategic level, operational effectiveness enables firms to benefit from inter-organizational relationships.

The authors contribute to industrial marketing knowledge by shedding light on mediation of relational capabilities between inter-organizational attributes and firm performance. The findings demonstrate the value of the relationship between a firm’s supply chain and its relational capabilities which in turn drive project performance.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the interactions that are engaged in when specialist organizations collaborate in business networks organized around global value chains. Interaction costs are defined as including transaction costs plus the costs for exchanging information and ideas. The view is forwarded that as interaction costs decrease, potential business partners have greater scope to interlink their business strategies and operations to co‐create value.

The paper draws on ideas linking the emergence of new forms of organization, technology and innovation, and global business strategy. In particular, its focus is on how ICT is transforming the ways in which organizations around the globe interlink through innovative approaches to operational and strategic imperatives.

Three factors that are either reducing interaction costs or increasing the effectiveness or frequency of interactions are identified and examined: the convergence of technologies, the delineation of roles within value chain business networks, and the emergence of innovative interaction strategies among network participants.

Further developments of “interactions theory,” based on the four factors discussed in this paper, would increase our knowledge of contemporary business models. A greater understanding of how interactions influence strategy and operational decisions is needed.

Advances in interaction efficiency will facilitate an increase in the number of businesses working together as networks. The speed and transparency of business arrangements will increase. As a consequence, executives will require advanced technology and relationship management skills.

This paper builds on previous conceptualizations, but provides a more encompassing and integrated explanation of new business approaches than most other accounts.