R&D Partner Selection Model and the Formation of Industrial R&D Networks Based on Cooperative Attractiveness

In this paper, we model the formation of R&D networks as they emerge from bilateral collaborative decisions. We provide an agent-based model of R&D partner selection and investigate the formation of industrial R&D networks. Different from previous literature, we generate the model based on the objective existing cooperative attractiveness and strategic motivations for partner selection and focus on the role of R&D capabilities of organizations and the logic distance between potential bilateral collaboration. We find that the new model can replicates the network structure well, and two features are central to the R&D network formation: importance of R&D capabilities of agents and the importance of logic distance between agents. The networks forcing by the partner selection model are performing an approximate power-law distribution.

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