Essays on the relationship between firms’ knowledge characteristics and R&D alliance performance in the semiconductor industry: Characterizing knowledge from technology landscapes in the semiconductor alliance market

Abstract

Today’s knowledge intensive environment can ben characterized with accelerating pace of technological change. To cope with such challenges, firms are forced to absorb external knowledge. The alliance literature postulates that R&D alliances function as conduits for the acquisition of external knowledge and that firms’ knowledge charateristics account for their varying alliance activities. Notwithstanding these scientific advancements, prior research has exclusively focused on firms’ knowledge characteristics at the firm or dyad level, leaving the understanding of the characteristics of knowledge from a broader perspective at a nascent stage. Therefore, this dissertation aims to build on and extend extant literature by shifting focus on characterizing knowledge in the context of technology landscapes. In Essay 1, I address that extant literature has relatively paid less attention to the structural properties of their knowledge at the sectoral level. Therefore, by combining with recent research on knowledge networks in the innovation literature, I endeavor to explore how the sector-level network characteristics of firms’ knowledge are associated with the propensity to ally. I examine the effects of two knowledge network characteristics – degree centrality and structural holes – on alliance formation. I further examine the joint effects of the knowledge network characteristics. In Essay 2, by combining insights from the alliance literature arguing that firms are more motivated to learn from partners with similar competitiveness, I theorize and corroborate that firms’ knowledge characteristics, in terms of technological dynamics, have an influence on focal firms’ R&D alliance activities. Given that firms engage in R&D alliances to cope with technological changes, I argue that firms assess their partners’ knowledge in the context of the technological dynamic trends. Assuming that firms are more motivated to learn from partners with similar competitiveness, I argue that firms are more willing to learn unfamiliar knowledge from partners in similar technology positions. I examine how the similarity of technology positions moderates the effect of technological similarity on R&D alliance performance.