Prior Experience and Co-opetition in R&D Programs

Past managerial literature found that prior experience of organisations is an important factor affecting somehow their willingness in participating to a R&D consortium. Our research extends this body of knowledge in two directions: (1) by investigating how prior experience affects the choices of organisations coordinating project proposals for R&D programs (the so-called “coordinators”) in terms of composition of their R&D consortia, and (2) by analysing how prior experience affects co-opetition between project coordinators. The assumption of the study is that organisations coordinating and forming R&D consortia for R&D programs usually engage in co-opetitive relationships with each other. Therefore, the research question of the paper is, “how does prior experience affect the coordinators’ choices about the formation of their inter-organisational consortia within a R&D program?” We analysed 2.895 R&D projects of inter-organisational consortia which received funds by the European Union under more Framework Programmes in order to implement R&D projects for the aerospace industry.