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

With consensus objectives, organizations established cooperation to optimize benefits, minimize replicated services, reduce costs, and enlarge professional networks. Cooperation optimizes capabilities and generates scale’s economies. Therefore, organizations develop relational capabilities, which are, according to Alves (2015) the creation and the combination, of common resources, intra and inter-structures, to manage conflicts, to promote trust, to transfer knowledge and information, to generate value and learning and to achieve process improvements, adaptations and/or innovations in interorganizational relationships. According to Alves, De-Carli and Segatto (2016a), coadaptation dimensions is part of the relational capabilities. It reflects the organizations’ ability to proactively adapt to create new and effective product and process solutions. This research aimed to compare the coadaptation dimension of relational capabilities in cooperations for the development of non-profit and for-profit technologies. This research was proposed a qualitative, descriptive and exploratory research with analysis of ten organizations that cooperated for technology’s development, divided between for-profit (Group P) and non-profit (group N). The data were collected through a semi-structured questionnaire and in-depth interviews, and they were analyzed by content analysis with case description and counting frequency of the factors’ presence in the coadaptation dimension and its components. The results showed that the analyzed organizations identified in their coadaptation’s dimension and its components twenty proposed factors. Aspects such partners’ adaptation, focus on common goals and solutions for improvement process were most mentioned for group P. But for social organizations, communication between partners and focus on generated results in partnerships to increase social credibility were more cited. In addition, only group P prioritized the need for experience in the partnerships’ realization, while group N emphasized the need to disseminate the created knowledge to warrant strategic dependence on knowledge and avoid disadvantage to partnerships. It was also realized that the results generated in the partnership were related to the capacity to evaluate them. The processes’ improvements had affinity with previous experiences. The search for common solutions was integrated with proposed changes and solutions and to maintain close relationships, communication between partners was necessary. The research allowed to identify which of the twenty-two factors are considered more relevant in coadaptation dimension of relational capabilities for cooperations that develop different types of technology. Thus, the organizations that make up these alliances may seek to develop these items to maintain and advance their partnerships. In addition, the study expands the knowledge about relational capabilities, which it is a theme previously studied, but still has aspects to be approached and discussed. Another relevance of this research was the focus on cooperations that carried out for the development of non-profit technologies, because it is a topic of a few theoretical-empirical discussion. Recommended future research are related alliances’ success and maintain based on the existence of the factors established in the dimensions of relational capabilities. It is possible to discuss similar researches, but addressing the other four dimensions (coordination, cultural, knowledge and technological).