Research consortia are cooperative research and development involving a large number of firms in the same industry. Since the early 1980s, the U. S. electronics industry has been interested in forming research consortia as a strategy to compete with Japan, in which, the U. S. believes, research consortia are an important measure of industrial policy. The paper has analyzed four research consortia in the U. S. electronics industry: Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MCC), Semiconductor Manufacturing Technology (SEMATECH), U. S. Memories, and High Definition Television (HDTV). The first two consortia were actually formed and the other two were planned but failed to organize.
The paper has found that, in the cases of MCC and SEMATECH, without a strong threat from foreign competitors firms are unwilling to support long-term R & D for drastic product innovation even at R & D consortia in which costs and risk of R & D are shared. Research goal and approach must be clear for research consortia to be successful, so that research consortia are an effective strategy to seek technological “catch-up” rather the expansion of the technological frontier.
U. S. electronics firms could not establish research consortia for HDTV, but several U. S. firms successfully developed digital HDTV, which indicates that a drastic innovation often results from competition among cooperative research groups, each of which consists of a small number of firms. It may be unwise for industry-wide research consortia to focus on the specific research approach when technology is still in an infant stage. Although research goal and approach should be clear, the failure of U. S. Memories indicates that firms do not want to cooperate with each other in R & D which is too close to their marketing strategies or factory-level know-how.
Government subsidies, which reduce the financial burden of participant firms, would be helpful for research consortia to be organized; however, there have been political and ideological disagreements in the United States regarding whether government should subsidize private sector's research consortia.
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