Title: Does technological proximity accelerate innovation speed in R&D collaboration? The evidence of rapid vaccine R&D for fighting the COVID-19 pandemic

Authors: Xintong Wu; Weinan Wang

Addresses: School of Economics and Management, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing 100029, China ' School of Economics and Management, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing, 100124, China

Abstract: With the urgency of COVID-19, international appeals encourage worldwide collaborations in rapid vaccine R&D. Rapid R&D projects raise the priority of innovation speed and call for the reconsideration of R&D collaboration mechanisms. This research focuses on R&D collaboration teams and examines the impact of technological proximity on innovation speed and its contingencies absorptive capacity and government involvement. Specifically, adopting the data of COVID-19 vaccine R&D projects from the WHO database, the results indicate that in R&D collaboration, technological proximity among partners makes an inverted U-shaped effect on innovation speed, which is positively moderated by the team's absorptive capacity. However, the moderating effect of government involvement is insignificant. This result provides implications for government officials and developers to balance technological similarity and heterogeneity, choose cooperation partners based on technological proximity, and achieve innovations rapidly.

Keywords: vaccine R&D; rapid R&D programs; R&D collaboration; innovation speed; COVID-19.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTM.2024.136421

International Journal of Technology Management, 2024 Vol.94 No.3/4, pp.295 - 318

Received: 21 Nov 2021
Received in revised form: 06 Jul 2022
Accepted: 01 Sep 2022
Published online: 01 Feb 2024 *

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