Strategic partnership and its effect on external learning of technology descendants

We examine how strategic partnership affects external learning of technology descendants from emerging markets under the context of Taiwan’s flat panel display industry. The study takes patent citation as a trail of knowledge flow, and incorporates 1,726 pairs relations of the cited and citing firms. Our empirical evidence shows positive pattern of external learning through strategic technology partnership. After controlling the quality factor of the knowledge, technology descendants do learn more from their alliance partners than other non-allied firms; particularly, trading type of partnerships characterized by the asymmetric relations appears to bring more impact. Furthermore, a focused approach in extrapolating knowledge from strategic partners seems to be the dominant practice.