Patterns of knowledge conversion: effects on the degree of novelty in project-based alliances

Beneath other functions, alliances are understood to promote firms' innovative capacity. Nevertheless, what remains as unexplored is how specific deep-level inter-firm patterns of collaboration influence the degree to which alliance partners' products and services are novel. By drawing on the quality of the relationship and the degree of overlapping mental maps between the collaborating firms, the paper depicts a model of three major mechanisms...