University-industry collaboration and front-end success: the moderating effects of innovativeness and parallel cross-firm collaboration

Collaboration with science-based and/or market-based partners is a promising means for firms' R&D groups to leverage complementary expertise and resources to generate innovative results. However, R&D managers face the dilemma which partner type to choose in different innovative contexts and whether to focus on one partner type or to integrate both types in early stage R&D. Using survey data from 166 heads of R&D groups, this study investigates university-industry collaboration's impact on front-end success depending on the degree of innovativeness and the interaction with other industry partners. The results confirm an overall positive relationship between university-industry collaboration and front-end success. However, innovativeness increases complexity in this relationship. Parallel collaboration with firms and universities can have a mixed impact on front-end success depending on the degree of innovativeness. This simultaneous collaboration with firms and universities strengthens front-end success for more radical innovations, while parallel collaboration activities for more incremental innovations do not necessarily strengthen front-end success. These findings imply that both collaboration types should be used simultaneously in the front end of radical innovation and that firms could reduce complexity by focusing on either firms or universities as partners for incremental innovations.