Domain Conceptual model Theory

In the theory it is assumed that the success of radical and incremen- tal innovations depends on a different set of collaboration characteris- tics, as formulated in the six propositions.

5.2.3 Research objective

The objective of this research is to contribute to the theory about the relation between collaboration characteristics of incremental and rad- ical innovation projects and the success of these projects, by testing the following new propositions. Proposition 1a: Success in radical innovation projects requires collaboration with new partners. Proposition 1b: Success in incremental innovation projects requires collaboration with existing partners. Proposition 2a: Success in radical innovation projects requires collaboration with partners that have different technological capabilities. Proposition 2b: Success in incremental innovation projects requires collaboration with partners that have similar technological capabilities. Proposition 3a: Success in radical innovation projects requires that partners establish alliance contracts with a low level of commitment. Proposition 3b: Success in incremental innovation projects requires that partners establish alliance contracts with a high level of commitment.

5.2.4 Research strategy

The propositions specify necessary conditions for success. Because these conditions cannot be manipulated experimentally, the case study Collaboration characteristics Success strategy is the preferred strategy Chapter 4. The propositions predict that success only will occur if the condition stated in the proposition is present. This means that these propositions can be tested by assessing whether the assumed necessary condition has indeed been present in successful projects. The proposition will be rejected if success also occurs in the absence of this condition. A single such case would be sufficient for such a rejection, in principle.

5.2.5 Candidate cases

Because it is sufficient for our test to find a single innovation project that was successful in the absence of the conditions specified by our propositions, any such case would suffice. It could be a project from any company and in any sector. Because we have been investigating certain aspects of Nokia’s innovation projects anyway see Dittrich, 2004 and, therefore, knew how to find the information about these projects that was relevant to this study, it was convenient for us to select some of Nokia’s innovation projects for this study. We have made use of the alliance database of the Centre for Global Corporate Positioning CGCP see www.cgcpmaps.com. The CGCP database contains information on alliances of a large number of firms. Alliance agreements in this database are defined as common interests between independent industrial partners, which are not connected through majority ownership. Only those collaborative agreements con- taining some arrangements for technology transfer or joint research have been collected for this database. The information in the database includes the starting date of the alliance as well as its form and its goal. If available, financial details have been included in the database as well. These data have been systemically collected from Internet resources, such as press releases on corporate websites and online pro- fessional journals. The database has been maintained continuously. The definition of innovation projects used to build the database is the same as was used in this case study. From this database we only analysed those innovation projects that had as an explicit goal the market intro- duction of a new product.

5.2.6 Case selection

First we identified in the CGCP database all alliances in which Nokia was a partner.