In the literature on innovation, interorganizational collaboration has been advanced as beneficial for the innovative performance of firms. At the same time, large‐scale empirical evidence for such a relationship is scarce. This article examines whether evidence can be found for the idea that interorganizational collaboration supports the effectiveness of innovation strategies. This article empirically addresses this research question by analyzing data on Belgian manufacturing firms (n=221) collected in the Community Innovation Survey, a biannual survey organized by Eurostat and the European Commission aimed at obtaining insights into the innovation practices and performance of companies within the various European Union (EU) member states. Tobit analyses reveal a positive relationship between interorganizational collaboration and innovative performance. At the same time, the impact on innovative performance differs depending on the nature of the partner(s) involved. These findings strongly suggest the relevance of adopting a portfolio approach to interorganizational collaboration within the context of innovation strategies.

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Firms increasingly adopt an open innovation model in which they rely on technology alliances to complement and supplement their internal innovation efforts. Although previous studies provide in-depth insight into the impact of technology alliances on the innovation performance, they remain relatively silent on how technology alliances eventually influence the financial performance of the firm. The purpose of this paper is to develop and test a conceptual framework that disentangles both the value-enhancing and cost-increasing effects of technology alliances on financial performance. The model was tested with a sample of 305 Belgian manufacturing firms. Combining data from the Belgian Community Information Survey (CIS IV) database and the BELFIRST database, structural equation analyses were conducted on the connection among technology alliance portfolio diversity, product innovation performance, and financial performance. This study's data provide empirical confirmation for the assumption of existing research that technology alliance portfolio diversity has an indirect positive impact on financial performance via increased product innovation performance. However, a direct cost-increasing effect of technology alliance portfolio diversity on financial performance is observed. Moreover, the structural equation analyses suggest that, in the short-term, the direct cost-increasing effect of technology alliance portfolio diversity exceeds the indirect value-generating effect of technology alliances. These findings contribute to the current research on open innovation in two important ways. First, these results support the open innovation model by illuminating the interconnectedness between internal and external innovation strategies. In particular, technology alliance portfolio diversity has a positive impact on internal innovation efforts, which increases product innovation performance. Second, the findings complement the focus of existing open innovation research on the value-generating properties of technology alliances, directing attention to the cost-increasing effects of such collaborative strategies. On a managerial level, these findings suggest that, when making technology alliance decisions, managers not only should consider the potential benefits of such collaborative strategies but also should take into account the additional costs of intensifying the technology alliance portfolio.

EXTENDED ABSTRACTThis paper analyzes the consequences for financial performance of technology strategies categorized along two dimensions: (1) explorative versus exploitative and (2) solitary versus collaborative. The financial performance implications of firms' positioning along these two dimensions has important managerial implications, but has received only limited attention in prior studies. Drawing on organizational learning theory and technology alliances literature, a set of hypotheses on the performance implications of firms' technology strategies are derived. These hypotheses are tested empirically on a panel dataset (1996)(1997)(1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003) of 168 R&D-intensive firms based in Japan, the US and Europe and situated in five different industries (chemicals, pharmaceuticals, ICT, electronics, non-electrical machinery). Patent data are used to construct indicators of explorative versus exploitative technological activities (activities in new or existing technology domains) and collaborative versus solitary technological activities (joint versus single patent ownership). The financial performance of firms is measured via a market value indicator: Tobin's Q index.The analyses confirm the existence of an inverted U-shape relationship between the share of explorative technological activities and financial performance. In addition, it is observed that most sample firms do not reach the optimal level of explorative technological activities. These findings point to the relevance of creating a balance between exploitation and exploration in the context of technological activities. Moreover, they suggest that, for the majority of R&D intensive firms, reaching such a balance between exploration and exploitation implies investing additional efforts and resources in exploring new knowledge domains. The analyses also show that firms, engaging more intensively in collaboration, perform relatively stronger in explorative activities. At the same time, a negative relationship between the share of collaborative technological activities and a firm's market value is observed. Contrary to our expectations, it is collaboration in explorative technological activities, rather than collaboration in exploitative technological activities, that leads to a reduction in firm value. These findings question the relevance of open business models for technological activities. In particular, they suggest that the potential advantages of collaboration for (explorative) technological activities (i.e. access to complementary knowledge from other partners, sharing of technological costs and risks) might not compensate for the potential disadvantages, such as the incurred increase in coordination costs and the need to share innovation rewards across innovation partners.5

 The majority of empirical studies on the HRM-performance link report a positive story. The costs associated with the productivity rise due to high performance work practices (HPWP) have been largely neglected. The purpose of this study is to develop a conceptual framework that maps both the value-enhancing and cost-raising impact of HPWP. In addition, we want to pronounce upon their overall effect on financial performance. To test our model, we rely on a sample of small businesses. Understanding both performance and cost-related effects of the implementation of HPWP is particularly valuable for small businesses since they often lack financial resources to implement HPWP and benefit less from economies of scale compared to their larger counterparts. Study results indicate that although greater use of HPWP is associated with increased productivity, this effect is offset by increased labour costs. However, we find an overall positive effect of HPWP on firm profitability.

Attempts to explore empirically the link between HRM and firm performance are numerous. Yet, research on this link remains restricted to large companies. Little is known about the extent to which the existing results extend to small businesses. The purpose of the present study is to develop and test a conceptual framework linking HRM to financial performance that fits small businesses. The central question is whether the development of an intensive HRM is profitable for smaller organizations. For the development and optimization of the conceptual framework, we rely on human capital theory and bankruptcy prediction models. Using structural equation modeling, we study the mediating effect of voluntary turnover and productivity on the relationship between HRM intensity and one year lagged financial performance. The results show both productivity and profitability enhancing effects as well as a cost increasing impact of HRM intensity. Copyright Springer 2006financial performance, HRM, productivity, small business management, voluntary turnover, C39, M50, M51, M52, M53,

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