Exploring public and private R&D partnership performance: a knowledge-based view of inter-organisational alliances

This paper proposes an examination of public and private Research and Development (R&D) relationships performance and factors that determine possible success (good performance) levels, especially within a learning and knowledge management context. We apply Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to arrive at relative efficiency scores, which serve as performance measures. The data set includes intersectoral R&D relationships supported by Spanish companies and Public Research Centres (PRC). We empirically investigate how R&D project and organisational characteristics influence R&D project performance. Our findings reveal that PRCs show more synergy with smaller organisations. Small organisations take better advantage of PRC expertise and resources. Likewise, we also show that integrated R&D projects achieve better results when they are not joined with other R&D projects or organisational functions.