روابط کاربر - تهیه کننده، نوآوری و تحول در ساختار بازار تحت رژیم های قراردادی جایگزین

In this paper we examine the effects that user-producer interactions have on innovation and the dynamics of market structure of two vertically related industries under alternative contractual regimes. The existence of advantages stemming from users-producers relationships introduces a dynamic “matching” problem between firms characterized by heterogeneous capabilities and imperfect information who act in a continuously changing environment but are however able to improve their products also through interactive and interdependent learning processes. Our results highlight the subtle trade-offs and dynamic interdependencies that arise in these contexts. In particular, we show that: (a) a trade-off is present between the exploitation of past experience and the exploration of new suppliers; (b) externalities are present, even if the advantages arising from interactions do not spill over to other firms; (c) imperfect information and agents heterogeneity are crucial factors in determining the consequences of alternative contractual arrangements on industry dynamics; (d) vertical interdependencies propagate the effects of specific firms’ decisions across industries and over time, so that the resulting dynamics is characterized by interacting path-dependent processes.

In this paper we examine the effects that user–producer interactions have on innovation and the dynamics of market structure of two vertically related industries under alternative contractual regimes. User–producer relationships have been a key theme in the economics of innovation ever since the seminal contribution by Lundvall (1992): user–producer relationships may generate interactive learning, improvements in products and processes and innovation. Yet, despite the widely recognized importance of user–producer interactions as an important source of innovation, very little attention has been paid to the analysis of how the existence of technological advantages arising from tight interactions among suppliers and producers influences the co-evolution of innovation and market structure. The empirical literature has focused mainly on the attempt at identifying how and at what conditions user–producer relations may foster innovation at the level of individual firm, region and country, without considering in any detail the consequences on the dynamics of concentration: if anything, the discussion has been mainly framed in terms of the relative advantages of establishing tight relations among suppliers and customers as opposed to vertical integration or other forms of governance of the innovative process. In a more theoretical perspective, while a few models (Ciarli et al., 2008 and Windrum et al., 2009) have studied the effects of vertical specialization and outsourcing on firms performance and innovation, no formal model has yet been produced so far which explicitly focuses on the effects of close interactions between users and producers and the patterns of industry evolution. In a previous paper (Malerba and Orsenigo, 2008), we began to explore how users–producers interactions affect innovation and the dynamics of market structure in industry evolution. In this paper we extend the analysis by examining how the benefits of user–producers interactions influence the rates of innovation and the evolution of market structure in the two related industries under alternative contractual arrangements. We do not address the issue of why specific contractual forms are used: more generally, we do not enter the realm of contract theory. Nor do we consider here the possibility that firms may vertically integrate. More modestly, as an initial step, we simply compare the dynamic effects of different contractual forms regulating market transactions, namely the length and the exclusivity of the contracts. The choice for a highly simplified analysis is supported by the consideration that even in this extremely stylized setting, the model generates a rather complex behaviour. In fact, the existence of advantages stemming from users–producers relationships introduces a dynamic “matching” problem between firms characterized by heterogeneous capabilities and imperfect information who act in a continuously changing environment but are however able to improve their products also through interactive and interdependent learning processes. Our results highlight the subtle trade-offs and dynamic interdependencies that arise in these contexts. In particular, we show that: a. a trade-off is present between the exploitation of past experience and the exploration of new suppliers; b. externalities are present, even if the advantages arising from interactions do not spill over to other firms; c. imperfect information and agents heterogeneity are crucial factors in determining the consequences of alternative contractual arrangements on industry dynamics; d. vertical interdependencies propagate the effects of specific firms’ decisions across industries and over time, so that the resulting dynamics is characterized by interacting path-dependent processes. It has to be emphasized that the model presented here is not “history-friendly”, i.e. it does not aim at qualitatively examining the main causal factors and processes that could explain the evolution of a particular industry (Malerba et al., 1999, Malerba et al., 2008 and Malerba and Orsenigo, 2002). This exercise originates indeed from a “history-friendly” model (Malerba et al., 2008), but it has not the ambition to reproduce the main stylized features of any particular industry. As much as we are convinced that history friendly models are an extremely useful and methodologically sound research tool, they are not necessarily the only acceptable modeling strategy. We believe that they are complementary with other more traditional styles. Here we develop a history friendly model in a more abstract way for two reasons. First, we are interested in investigating and probing a more general phenomenon that might apply to a variety of industries, very much along the lines of Malerba et al. (2007). Second, in a complementary perspective, we feel the need of beginning to elucidate some more abstract theoretical issues which could then guide us towards the construction of models of industries where user–producer relations play a particularly important role. The paper is organized as follows. In the next section we discuss the empirical and theoretical background of the paper. In Section 3 we begin to examine the complex issues that the consideration of user–producer relations introduces in the dynamics of market structure. In Section 4 we present the spirit and the logic of the model, the structure of which is outlined in Section 5. Then in Section 6 we run the basic simulation exercises. Finally in Section 7 we draw the main conclusions.

In this paper we have examined how user–producers interactions influence the rates of innovation and the evolution of market structure in the two related industries under alternative contractual arrangements, namely the length and the exclusivity of the contracts. Results show that: (a) exclusive relationships tend to constrain firms’ growth, technological change and concentration; (b) in the absence of advantages from user–producer relationships, longer term contracts tend to be associated with higher concentration in the upstream industry, lower concentration in the downstream sector and higher rates of technological advance in both industries; (c) as the benefits from interaction between users and producers become stronger, longer term contracts are associated with lower concentration and rates of technological progress in both sectors; (d) when different contractual lengths are allowed to compete with each other, firms relying on long-term contracts have always a better performance and more so as the bonus from interaction increases. These findings depend crucially on the interplay between different dynamic processes and characteristics of the functioning of selection and learning mechanisms. Success-breeds-success processes and externalities introduce path-dependency. User–producer interactions create a dynamic matching problem between suppliers and their clients which involves trade-offs between exploration (search of more efficient suppliers) and exploitation (fully reaping the benefits from interaction with the current supplier). Endogenously generated heterogeneity among firms and imperfect information interact in defining the effects of alternative contractual forms. Vertical relations transmit these effects from one sector to another. Collective phenomena are also important in determining the outcomes of competing contractual strategies. These aspects play a crucial role in a dynamic environment where the efficiency of suppliers changes endogenously over time and it may not be easily evaluated by users. In particular, long-term contracts are associated with higher rates of innovation and concentration, but these advantages tend to decline and are even reversed when it easier to assess the relative efficiency of suppliers and when the advantages accruing from user–producer interactions are stronger (i.e. heterogeneity is higher). These results can be taken only as preliminary and suggestive. The analysis is based on several highly restrictive simplifying assumptions, mainly as it concerns homogeneity in the opportunities from interaction among firms and the lack of a mechanism of choice of alternative contractual conditions. Future work will relax these and other hypotheses. However, we are confident that the results of this paper can begin to shed light on some intriguing issues which arise in the analysis of the vertical relations among firms in dynamic, evolutionary contexts.