R&D consortia in the United States and Japan

Abstract

US and Japanese public policy toward inter-organizational arrangements for R&D between competitors has changed over the past few decades, and different national approaches to industrial policy have produced different R&D arrangements in each nation. We focus on Technology Research Associations (TRAs) in Japan that were registered under the 1961 Act on Mining and Manufacturing Industry, and R&D consortia in the US that were registered under the 1984 National Cooperative Research Act. The same questionnaire was administered to 39 consortium managers in the US and 54 in Japan, focusing on issues of governance and administration. We show that consortia in Japan and the US have made very different choices about how they will conduct research. Almost nine out of ten Japanese consortia conduct research in member firms, compared with a little over four out of ten US consortia. Japanese consortia focus on a narrower range of R&D activities than do US consortia, with Japanese consortia completely avoiding university-based R&D. Japanese consortia depend heavily on government funds for their support, whereas US consortia depend mostly on member dues. Unlike the US, national institutional support appears to provide a strong central source for the diffusion of knowlege about the effect of different forms of consortia throughout Japan.