The past two decades have witnessed an enormous growth worldwide in the number of inter-firm collaborations. This trend towards more cooperation is considered as one of the greatest changes in the way business is conducted. However, several important questions in the field of inter-firm collaboration remain unanswered.

Based on institutional and industrial economics Carolin Häussler analyzes the following topics:

" Do inter-firm collaborations increase firm value?
" Does value enhancement vary according to firm and collaboration characteristics?
" What determines the allocation of control rights between asymmetrical partners?
" Does the contractual structure influence the success of collaboration?
" Is collaboration supporting firm restructuring in times of change?

This book is essential reading for researchers and students in the fields of business administration and economics. It is equally interesting to managers in corporate development and strategy departments.

Autorentext
Dr. Carolin Häussler ist wissenschaftliche Assistentin von Prof. Dietmar Harhoff, Ph.D., am Institut für Innovationsforschung, Technologiemanagement und Entrepreneurship der Universität München.

Inhalt
1 General introduction.- 1.1 Relevance and incidence of inter-firm collaboration.- 1.2 Definition of inter-firm collaboration.- 1.3 Contributions of this thesis.- 2 Inter-firm collaboration and firm value.- 2.1 Introduction and motivation.- 2.2 Inter-firm collaborations as value-creating mechanisms.- 2.3 Research design.- 2.4 Empirical tests and results.- 2.5 Conclusion and limitations.- 3 Control rights and the performance of asymmetrical inter-firm collaborations.- 3.1 Introduction and motivation.- 3.2 Institutional and theoretical considerations.- 3.3 Characteristics of inter-firm collaboration in biotechnology.- 3.4 Hypotheses.- 3.5 Research design.- 3.6 Empirical tests and results.- 3.7 Conclusion and limitations.- 4 Firm-specific factors and their impact on firm restructuring in times of change.- 4.1 Introduction and motivation.- 4.2 Previous industry level and firm level studies on restructuring.- 4.3 Biotechnology sector in restructuring.- 4.4 Biotechnology firm scenarios, determinants and research hypotheses.- 4.5 Research design.- 4.6 Empirical tests and results.- 4.7 Discussion and conclusion.- A Appendix of Chapter 2.- A.1: Number of ad hoc news in the German market (19972002).- A.2: Correlation matrix of dependent and metric independent variables.- A.3: Descriptive statistics of control variables.- B Appendix of Chapter 3.- B.1: Drug development time and stages.- B.2: Industry experts in interview series.- B.3: Questionnaire.- B.4: Co-allocation patterns of control rights.