danish research unit for industrial dynamics druid working paper no ...

234. Production of specific assets and their transferIn order to occur, learning needs some specific commitments both in tangible andintangible assets for sustaining cooperation (Lazaric and Wolff, 1996; Gulati et al., 1994).These resources play two roles: on the one hand they coordinate diversity of knowledgecoming from the association of two different corporate cultures and on the other hand theypreserve cooperation by creating irreversibility’s. If the partners do not commit someresources, cooperation has little chance of succeeding. Firms engaging in cooperation haveto make a bet on the future rents from the alliance and must commit some resources withouthaving any degree of certainty about the returns on this kind of cooperation. In fact thisprocess is not an automatic one and needs time for creating a climate of trust and forfinding some organisational rules able to coordinate the diversity without bringing intoquestion the identities of the two firms involved (Bureth et al., 1996).Specific technological assets can be embodied in some specific equipment but can alsoinclude some collective competencies, as we usually find in the design phase. They can berelational through the creation of many ties during the project or before its implementation.These assets are very important for mobilising new combinations of knowledge whichcannot be created if conflicts between firms exist. In this way, these relational assets aresustained by personal trust coming from close interactions between individuals workingtogether. Finally as we shall show later, relational assets are the first step for improvingcoordination by helping the creation of some appropriate organisational mechanisms suchas rules or routines 5 . From another side specific assets either technological, relational ororganisational produce some strong externalities and increase returns to the ongoinglearning (Levinthal and March, 1981; March, 1991).These externalities promote exchange of information and knowledge that create a degree oflock-in which discourages the cooperation with others partners. That is the reason why welook very carefully at the nature of assets produced because some part of them may belocked in and difficult to transfer while some others may be re-deployed in different5 We would like to stress that building competencies in agreements cannot overlook the role of humancapital which play an active part in the transformation and adaptation of the technology. These relationaland organizational resources are important for increasing the problem-solving capacity of each firm andmay be considered as assets (Winter, 1987).