Capturing knowledge within and across firm boundaries: Evidence from clinical development

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Azoulay, P
• 署名单位: Columbia University
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/0002828043052259
• 发表日期: 2004
• 页码: 1591-1612
• 关键词: Vertical Integration; incentive contracts; SCOPE; form

摘要

How do firm boundaries influence employees' acquisition of information? Using detailed project-level data and qualitative evidence, I document that pharmaceutical firms are more likely to outsource the coordination of data-intensive clinical trials, while they are more likely to assign knowledge-intensive trials to internal teams. Managers do not choose between market and hierarchy, but between the hierarchy of the firm-in which subjective performance evaluations are combined with flat explicit incentives-and the hierarchy of its subcontractor-whose virtue stems precisely from the ability to provide high-powered incentives on a narrow set of monitorable tasks.