The Impact of Motivational Factors of Participation in R&D Consortia on Firm Performance

The formation of R&D consortia can provide enterprises with many competitive advantages and allow them to achieve economies of scale. Therefore, R&D consortia are an important way of enhancing technical capacity, reducing cost and risk, and maintaining the competitive advantages of enterprises. This study selected 489 consortia with 1,668 participating enterprises from 14,922 government-subsidized enterprises participating in the six projects of participation in R&D consortia during the period 2000-2011. The research focus was to explore the motivation and effectiveness of enterprise participation in consortia using 14 variables for internal and external factors. The study found that these internal and external factors were significantly and positively correlated with the formation of the R&D consortia. Moreover, after participating in R&D consortia, the capital, turnover, number of employees, R&D talent, and new products and services of these enterprises all increased.