26 Years of Strategic Technology Partnering: Trends, Patterns and Future Prospects in Research Through Frequency Analysis

Many firms are increasingly cooperating in their technological undertakings. They engage in strategic technology partnerships (STP) for technological, commercial, industrial, and financial reasons. STP is deemed imperative for easing the access to strands of technologies that are unknown to a company. This frequency analysis on STP bases on systematic literature review (SLR) approach and provides a thorough review of 57 articles published in highly-ranked peer-reviewed journals, spanning a 26-year period from 1988 to the beginning of 2014. Research on STP is somewhat fragmented which renders some of the research studies irreconcilable and impedes a greater understanding and consistency of the discipline. There is still a growing body of literature on the subject matter from various disciplinary perspectives adopting different theoretical and methodological lenses at diverse levels of analysis. In the present paper, we analyse among other things the various methodological, research and theoretical issues underpinning STP and propose a research agenda. Hence, we contribute to the existing body of knowledge the STP literature that currently exists by offering a state-of-the-art overview of the current research and elaborating on promising areas for further investigation.