Does Going-Together Always Lead to Better Solutions? Exploring Challenge-Based R&D Projects

Abstract

To tackle important grand societal challenges, government institutions initiate large- scale programs in which organizations participate in challenge-based R&D projects, aimed at solving extant technological problems within a specific field. Due to knowledge recombination benefits, it is often assumed that organizations should go-together – i.e. formally involving partners in these projects – rather than go- alone – i.e. proceeding independently. In this study, we relax the assumption that going-together is always more productive than going-alone in terms of problem- solving performance. Specifically, we argue that that not every organization is able to translate potential into realized knowledge recombination opportunities. Firstly, we formulate a baseline hypothesis, in which we expect that problem- solving performance is higher, on average, when going-together than going- alone. Secondly, we hypothesize that the ability to translate potential into realized knowledge recombination opportunities when going-together is contingent upon the focal organization’s institutional background, internal knowledge pool size, and challenge-based R&D project portfolio size. Analysing a unique sample of 414 challenge-based R&D projects within the Department of Energy’s Hydrogen and Fuel Cells Program over a 14-year time period (2003-2016), we generally find support for our theoretical predictions. We contribute to theory and practice by showing that the often-assumed performance edge of going-together over going- alone does not materialize for every organization.