Strategic alliances between large and small high-tech firms. (The small firm licensing option)
by John W. Lang
International Journal of Technology Management (IJTM), Vol. 12, No. 7/8, 1996

Abstract: In this paper, I have used the material gathered from the interviews with directors of the three companies studied, to attempt to understand why they have been successful in their respective licensing agreements. Specifically, I examine three related questions: why licensing may be a beneficial form of partnering for the small firm to take?; how the small firm may protect itself in the agreements?; and the importance of the boundary spanning role and micro-bargaining situations struck at the firm boundaries. Clearly, any 'results' and/or conclusions are tentative and point to the need for further work in this area. This paper does attempt to address a relatively overlooked area of research and study, that of small/large firm alliances using licensing as the preferred mode of partnering. The majority of the literature published to date in this area subsume licensing as a governance structure under the wider umbrella of strategic alliances. In addition, research in these topics tends to lean towards the large firm as licensor. In this paper, the reader will see this reversed, i.e. small firm as licensor. The research was conducted via in-depth interviews with various personnel of the companies involved and took a grounded theory approach in exploring and gathering the data. This methodology was adopted due to the lack of existing research in this topic and therefore the need to generate new data.

Online publication date: Fri, 22-May-2009

The full text of this article is only available to individual subscribers or to users at subscribing institutions.

 
Existing subscribers:
Go to Inderscience Online Journals to access the Full Text of this article.

Pay per view:
If you are not a subscriber and you just want to read the full contents of this article, buy online access here.

Complimentary Subscribers, Editors or Members of the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Technology Management (IJTM):
Login with your Inderscience username and password:

Username:        Password:          Forgotten your password?

Want to subscribe?
A subscription gives you complete access to all articles in the current issue, as well as to all articles in the previous three years (where applicable). See our Orders page to subscribe.

If you still need assistance, please email subs@inderscience.com