View article

We explore the benefits of alliances for the innovation performance of spin-off firms, in particular spin-offs from either other firms or from public research organizations. During the early years of the emerging combinatorial chemistry industry, spin-offs engaged in alliances with large and established partners, partners of similar type and size, or with public research organizations, often for different reasons. We seek to understand to what extent alliances of spin-offs with other firms (either large or small and medium sized firms) affected their innovation performance and how this performance may have been affected by their corporate or public research background. We find evidence that in general alliances of spin-offs with other firms, in particular alliances with large firms, increased their innovation performance. Corporate spin-offs that formed alliances with other firms outperformed public research spinoffs with such alliances. This suggests that, in terms of their innovation performance, corporate spin-offs that engaged in alliances with other firms seemed to have benefitted from their prior corporate background. Interestingly, it turns out that the negative impact of alliances on the innovation performance of public research spin-offs was largely affected by their alliances with small and medium sized firms.(word count: 193)