26th International Association for Management of Technology Conference - IAMOT 2017

Product and process innovation is essential to maintain competitiveness and companies have been creating an increasing number of strategic partnerships to pursue it. A correct assessment of partners’ complementary areas is likely to lead to faster and higher quality innovation, while reducing and sharing risks among the partners. However, studies have also shown that many partnerships fail for a variety of reasons. There is a dearth of studies looking at the factors that determine success or failure in developing countries, mainly in the food industry and particularly related to partner selection criteria. The purpose of study is to: a) identify criteria for selecting the most appropriate partner in order to develop a technological innovation; b) identify the relative importance of these criteria. Initially, the study will review the literature on this issue and identify the factors involved. The model will then be applied to a Brazilian company that is currently selecting a partner for a strategic technology alliance. This company is JBS, a Brazilian company global leader in animal protein production with 340 plants in several countries, 230.000 employees and the ability to produce over 20 million tons of various types of food products including meat and meat products. Given the geographic breadth and wide range of new business opportunities in the animal protein sector, JBS aims to create a technology partnership that will leverage biomass and establish a foothold in the pharmaceutical inputs sector through biotechnology. It is currently looking at several Indian, Korean and Brazilian multinationals to select a strategic partner. Survey respondents will be employees from the company’s new business area who are based in a wide range of countries and are responsible for selecting strategic alliance partners. The conclusions cannot be applied more generally given the case methodology limitations.