Voluntary Technology Sharing to Rivals

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Chen, Jianqing; Zeng, Weijun
• 署名单位: University of Texas System; University of Texas Dallas; Hainan University
• 刊物名称: INFORMATION SYSTEMS RESEARCH
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1047-7047; 1526-5536
• DOI: 10.1287/isre.2024.1255
• 发表日期: 2026-03
• 关键词: technology sharing; voluntary technology sharing; new-product development; cannibalization externality; spokes model analytical modeling; research-and-development; product; COMPETITION; MARKETS; variety; entry; FIRMS; price

摘要

Technology sharing to rivals and new-product introductions enabled by those technologies are often observed across different industries. We develop a game-theoretic model to examine why a firm would voluntarily share its technology and help its rival develop a new product. We find that the cannibalization consideration in the rival's multiproduct pricing imposes externality on the focal firm, and this largely gives rise to its incentive to share technology in addition to the potential benefit from the change in demand elasticity. Surprisingly, the rival does not always embrace the shared technology. In equilibrium, as long as the existing product valuation is not too high, the new product is introduced when the new product's valuation is neither low nor high. When the new product's valuation is high, the excessive additional competition against the focal firm discourages it from sharing. When the new product's valuation is low, either cannibalization does not emerge in the rival's pricing, providing no incentive for the focal firm to share, or the rival could be harmed by a new product with mediocre valuation. We show that social welfare increases with the new-product introduction to a large extent except when the existing product's valuation is high but the new product's valuation is relatively low. The new-product introduction increases consumer surplus only when the existing product valuation is low. Compared with technology sharing to an independent third party, the focal firm is more likely to share its technology to the rival.