Invest Heavily and Symmetrically: The Impact of Specific Investment on the Performance of R&D Collaboration

This paper probes deeper into the impact of specific investment on the performance of R&D collaboration through investigating the relationships of both total specific investment and specific investment asymmetry to the performance of R&D collaboration and by examining the mediating effects of cooperative and competitive behaviors on the relationships. Drawing on the data of 140 dyadic R&D collaboration, this paper finds that total specific investment and specific investment asymmetry have different effects on the performance of R&D collaboration, and cooperative and competitive behaviors are the conduits through which specific investment works. These findings not only enrich our knowledge on the linkage of specific investment to the performance of R&D collaboration, but also advance our understanding of the implications of specific investment and the determinants of the performance of R&D collaboration. In addition, this paper responds to the call for testing antecedents and consequences of cooperative and competitive behaviors in collaboration and thereby contributes to research on these behaviors.