Shaping the Path to Inventive Activity: The Role of Past Experience in R & D Alliances

A firm's past experiences with R&D alliances exert a positive effect on an invention's impact. Experience with R&D alliances increases the breadth of knowledge classes that firms cited in their subsequent patent applications. Past experience with R&D alliances has a non-significant effect on the breadth of different technological classes that will subsequently cite a firm's patented inventions. As expected, results suggest that —? in the area of R&D — alliances formed by experienced partners are more likely to produce inventions that synthesize knowledge from more diverse in-puts (originality). Experienced alliance partners are more likely to generate useful inventions with a greater innovative impact on others' subsequent inventions —? knowledge that can be built upon — when they collaborate with others in alliances. Results are indeterminate with regard to whether innovation via an R&D alliance increases an invention's degree of applicability across diverse scientific and technological fields that might cite its patent.