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This paper studies a number of research topics derived from the basic question: do inter®rm alliances change into mergers and acquisitions as companies that were previously co-operating become integrated? The analysis is limited to the group of strategic technology alliances, i.e. those inter®rm agreements for which joint technology development or technology sharing is part of the agreement.The paper ®rst explores the literature that refers to the possible transition from strategic technology alliances to mergers and acquisitions. Based on this we formulate a number of hypotheses regarding the change in modes of governance and several dimensions of this process related to the international distribution of transformed alliances, their industry speci®city, the size of ®rms, and the distribution of contractual and equity agreements. The major ®nding of our research is that the transformation from strategic technology alliance to merger and acquisition hardly ever takes place. This suggests that alliances and mergers and acquisitions are not part of a rather smooth continuum but they are ®rst of all dierent modes of governance where one mode certainly does not lead to the other.

Extant research on research and development (R&D) internationalization has not examined how effective foreign R&D investments are in generating positive returns for the investing firms, in particular in comparison and conjunction with the effects of domestic R&D investments. We examine the effectiveness of international knowledge sourcing through foreign R&D in an empirical analysis of the productivity effects of foreign and domestic R&D investments in a large panel of firms based in the Netherlands. We argue that foreign and domestic R&D will exhibit complementarity in their effects on productivity, but that the roles of domestic and foreign R&D depend on the relative position of the home country with respect to the global technology frontier and the related relative opportunities for knowledge sourcing abroad. We estimate a dynamic panel data model derived from a knowledge stock augmented production function framework allowing for productivity convergence and declining returns to R&D. We confirm that for firms active in industries in which the home country is behind the global technology frontier, foreign R&D provides positive returns and has a complementary relationship with domestic R&D. For industries at the global technology frontier, in contrast, domestic R&D is the primary source of productivity growth.

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The growth of municipal glass fiber networks across Europe has since the 1990s been surrounded by high uncertainty and risk. As the existing legal and regulatory framework in the European Union (EU) provided sufficient grounds for an innovation rationale, the Dutch government decided in early 2000s to provide subsidies for a regional experimentation and testing environment called "Kenniswijk" (Knowledge District) with Nuenen as location for a glass fiber network. In order to examine the effects of this network, we utilize the concept of local experimentation and testing system, i.e. an environment in which different actors are able to explore and learn from the implementation of new infrastructure technologies and services in a (local) real life setting. By undertaking a techno-economic analysis, we found a) that government subsidies have been vital for local municipal network in Nuenen; and b) that the knowledge gained about the characteristics of this network facilitated further investment of municipal networks throughout the Netherlands.

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The development of individuals' digital skills has received much attention as a remedy for digital inequality. Although some researchers favor courses and guided learning for skills development, others propose learning by trial-and-error. Unfortunately, studies examining the value of the so-called "do-it-yourself approach" for the development of digital skills remain lacking. One difficulty lies in the vicious circle of lack of skill leading to infrequent Internet usage and vice versa, which limits the value of cross-sectional data for assessing the impact of this approach. We present longitudinal data on a random sample of Internet users in a Dutch city, which show that more frequent Internet use leads to more digital skills, but not the other way around. However, contrary to expectations about the potential of trial-and-error learning to reduce inequality, results also suggests that this approach is not always more beneficial to the "have-little" as compared to the "have-more." The only inequality-reducing effect of this approach is that that older users profit more from it than younger users do.

As flourishing, productive open source software (OSS) communities mature, they have to introduce a variety of governance mechanisms to manage the participation of their members and to coordinate the launch of new releases. In contrast to other modes of governance of OSS communities, the Debian community introduced new mechanisms of informal administrative control based on a constitution, elected leaders and new functions attributed to interactive communication channels (like mailing lists or IRC channels) that can provide for community effects (and feedback). We show that these control mechanisms were introduced as a response to emerging innovative opportunities due the usage of source packages and heterogeneous learning processes by different groups within the Debian community,