Study On Synergy Mechanism Of Enterprise R&D Alliance From Three Dimensions

With the arrival of the knowledge economy age, it is inevitable for many enterprises to carry out organizational learning and look for the cooperation outside in order to exist and develop under such fast changing environment. The R&D Alliances among the enterprises which engage in the knowledge production activity is not only of strategic importance to the enterprises themselves, but also very critical to enhance the national technology level even national competitiveness. It is reported by IMD in Switzerland that the R&D activities are not enough in China is one of the reasons to result in the weakness of China's science and technology competence. As China's market economy system goes more deeply, the R&D activities are paid more attention than ever. Therefore, "What is the basic theory to synergize the alliances to exert full power?" and "How to make it come true?" are becoming a research subject with practical and theoretical meanings.It is pointed that although some theories, such as social specialization theory, transaction cost theory, value chain theory, resource and capability theory, game theory, social capital theory, explain the R&D activity from different angles, the internal synergy mechanism of R&D alliances cannot be explained by any of them. It is proposed that synergy theory should be the basic theory to study the synergy mechanism of R&D alliances and the R&D alliance is the synergy system of knowledge production in nature. It constructs the three dimensional analytic framework of the synergy research on R&D alliances, that are mutual learning synergy, right and interest configuration synergy and relationship capital synergy based on the research angle of the synergy ability of R&D alliances to produce knowledge and the order parameters in the process of synergy. Then, the synergy rules of three dimensions and the model of synergy measuring are analysed. As to the management of R&D alliances, the value of the framework is to present a theoretical angle, furthermore, the value of the rules and the model is to present management tools.The internal details in the mutual learning process are explored. It is concluded the paths of the knowledge flow and the ways that mutual learning influences the core competence. Experience learning, benchmark learning, application learning and cooperative learning are studied. It is put forward the R&D alliance knowledge integration model which is based on the knowledge organization and self-organization. Through the empirical study, the influencing factors to the alliance learning are recognized.The synergy of the rights and interest configuration in the R&D alliances includes some issues on R&D control, share of input and risk, interest allocation. On the control configuration, it is impossible to make the co-governance to be true although it could solve the problem. In order toavoid the conflicts on the control configuration, it is necessary to choose the suitable structure of organization governance. It is pointed out that two factors, namely, cooperation level and range, should be the key reason to decide the R&D alliance governance. As to the share of risks, it is pointed out that the risk is only existed in the allocation of input and output. The influence of input allocation made by risk is emphasized before the appearance of risk, and the latter one is emphasized on the output allocation. Due to the uncertainty of R&D activities, it is pointed that mutual coordination is the ideal mechanism of input-sharing. The contract on allocation of property right should be made before R&D activities. Some measures of solving the conflicts are presented based on the process management view.Based on the social capital theory and the psychological cortract theory, the dissertation analyses the appropriate degree of the trust relationship and the issue that how to synergize the diversified cultures. Both more trust and less trust are not helpful to the steadiness of the R&D alliance. Frequent communication, special property investment and construction of audit mechanism are all able to improve the trust level. The reason of the culture discrepancy is proposed from the national and enterprise level, and also the negative and active roles of culture discrepancy are analyzed. Therefore, the culture discrepancy should be maintained at the appropriate level.The synergy matrix is used to measure the synergic degree of the R&D alliance. The concept of the synergic degree is defined. The R&D alliance is divided to five sub-systems: alliance mutual learning system, right and interest configuration, relationship capital maintenance, internal environment and external environment. Then, the synergy model is constructed and it is used to do the empirical analysis of the cooperative R&D activity between Dalian Iceberg Group and Switzerland AXIMA Corporation.