The evolution of incumbents’ role during new nanotechnology based firms’ collaboration within new product development

How incumbents benefit from advanced technologies has played an important role in the management literature. Industrial companies, in spite of certain advantages in the resources, experience and market knowledge, need to use advanced technology to increase their competitive advantages. Yet very little research has explained how incumbents collaborate with new nanotechnology based firms in order to develop new nano products. The study focuses on longitudinal six-year case studies of five collaborations between incumbents and new nanotechnology based firms. The contribution of this research is available in three parts. First, the benefit of incumbents from the nanotechnology requires a long-term extensive and interactive process, based on the synergy of technological capabilities of the new nanotechnology firms and the incumbents’ resources and capabilities. Second, the incumbents must have flexibility in their structures and collaboration’s strategies. Third, the role of the incumbents changes from a "technology taker" at the start of the collaboration to "new product development mentor" and then becomes a high-tech product / service buyer after clarifying the dimensions of technology and product innovation. This study provides a worthy illustration of these collaborations for researchers, managers and policymakers.