R&D partnerships: An exploratory approach to the role of structural variables in joint project performance

Traditionally the literature on partnership has focused on understanding why firms choose to cooperate and with whom, however, our understanding of the impact of the resulting network structure on the performance of the project is limited. This study builds on joint R&D projects developed in Europe in order to analyse certain structural variables - number and typology of partners, and intensity and density of interactions in the network - which may result in a greater performance of exploration and exploitation R&D projects. Findings show that these structural variables are good predictors of project performance; in particular, the joint performance function in exploration projects is positively dependent on the number of partners; however, in exploitation projects this function depends positively on the density and intensity of interactions, and negatively on the number of partners. Our results complement previous research while adding empirical evidence on the nonlinear and contingent character of structural variables and the performance of joint projects.