Complejidad del intercambio, la dependencia de recursos y la subcontratación a largo plazo de servicios de I+D

  1. Martínez Noya, Andrea
  2. García Canal, Esteban
Revista:
Revista europea de dirección y economía de la empresa

ISSN: 1019-6838

Año de publicación: 2012

Volumen: 21

Número: 2

Páginas: 191-204

Tipo: Artículo

DOI: 10.1016/S1019-6838(12)70006-9 DIALNET GOOGLE SCHOLAR lock_openAcceso abierto editor

Otras publicaciones en: Revista europea de dirección y economía de la empresa

Información de financiación

La TCT considera el hecho de que en las transacciones caracteri-zadas por alta incertidumbre se tendería a internalizar la transac-ción (Williamson, 1985, 1991) en el caso que nos ocupa la prestación de servicios de I+D, a integrar verticalmente dicho servicio. No obstante, también es sabido que internalizar actividades en entornos caracterizados por un alto dinamismo tecnológico puede imponer a la empresa inflexibilidad y rigidez, precisamente cuando se conside-ra más necesaria la flexibilidad (Lee, et al. 2009; Poppo y Zenger, 1998). De hecho, investigaciones previas sobre alianzas estratégicas en tecnología han demostrado que, cuando las empresas necesitan responder rápidamente a cambios tecnológicos, las alianzas proveen a las de mayor flexibilidad estratégica (Osborn y Baughn, 1990). No obstante, no todas las alianzas son iguales en este sentido, pues cuanto mayor sea el horizonte temporal de la relación, mayor es el efecto negativo que se deriva de la incertidumbre tecnológica. En efecto, si la incertidumbre tecnológica es elevada, va a resultar difícil especificar adecuadamente tanto los recursos necesarios para la prestación del servicio como cuál será el output esperado, lo que di-ficulta a su vez redactar un contrato que considere todas las contin-gencias que pudieran darse en la relación de intercambio (Artz y Brush, 2000). Esta dificultad será mayor cuanto mayor sea el hori-zonte temporal del contrato, lo que hará que este sea cada vez más incompleto y, por lo tanto, la empresa asuma más riesgos no sólo por la creciente dificultad para establecer una protección total del cono-cimiento tecnológico que pudiera ponerse en manos del proveedor, sino para adaptarse a la evolución del entorno. De hecho, como seña-la Klein (1988), los contratos a largo plazo, aunque pueden proteger a quien tiene que realizar inversiones específicas, generan costes de transacción adicionales debido a que la mayor dificultad para rom-perlos puede generar nuevos problemas de oportunismo, al tiempo que atan innecesariamente a la empresa a un proveedor al que la evolución tecnológica ha vuelto obsoleto. Como resultado de lo ante-riormente expuesto, se espera que:

Financiadores

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