Knowledge integration using product R&D outsourcing in biotechnology
研究了生物技术企业如何通过将核心研发外包或内部化来实现非模块化产品的知识整合，通过对比两家企业的长期案例，揭示了外包企业如何通过将非模块化外包伪装成模块化并加强沟通来规避风险。
We build on systems integration literature to explain how and why knowledge integration of non-modular products is based on a strategic choice between internalizing and outsourcing core R&D. The under-researched choice of outsourcing core R&D on an on-going basis appears to face risks of higher transactions costs and loss of control. We illuminate these choices in a comparative analysis of two longitudinal cases that compare an internally focused R&D intensive firm and an externally focused R&D intensive firm; and we show how the externally focused approach can avoid risks by framing non-modular outsourcing as modular even though it is not so and by engaging in a social process of communication to achieve a common agreement between partners concerning the direction of efforts and thus effectively reduce highly iterative knowledge exchange between modules. Our findings add to our understanding of the systems integration literature; the nature of firm product system strategies, as well as firm boundaries in a knowledge economy.