Enhancing value via cooperation: Firms' process benefits from participation in a standard consortium

Firms benefit from participating in a consortium in two ways: from final products and from the cooperation process. Process benefits, including interorganizational learning and social capital benefits, are critical to motivate firms to participate in a consortium. However, there is limited understanding of what factors enable firms to obtain process benefits via consortium activities. Based on 232 member surveys collected from seven e-business standard consortia, we find that firms anticipate more process benefits if they are more technically capable, value the forthcoming standards higher, and participate in a better-managed consortium. Surprisingly, although relational risks exist due to potential competition among consortium members, their impacts on process benefits are insignificant in e-business standard consortia. Furthermore, our empirical analysis suggests that more technically capable firms handle relational risk less effectively when learning within the consortium.