  This research analyzes the effects of U.S. science and technology policy on
the technological performance of organizations in a global strategic alliance
network. During the mid-1980s the U.S. semiconductor industry appeared to be
collapsing. Industry leaders and policymakers moved to support and protect U.S.
firms by creating a program called Sematech. While many scholars regard
Sematech as a success, how the program succeeded remains unclear. This study
re-contextualizes Sematech as a network administrative organization which
lowered cooperation costs and enhanced resource combination for innovation at
the cutting edge. This study combines network analysis and longitudinal
regression techniques to test the effects of public policy on organizational
network position and technological performance in an unbalanced panel of
semiconductor firms between 1986 and 2001. This research suggests governments
might achieve policy through inter-organizational innovations aimed at the
development and administration of robust governance networks.
