A set of 79 cooperative R&D projects developed in universities and research centers in Minas Gerais - Brazil were analyzed in order to capture perceptions of 305 researchers, out of 673 experienced scientists on cooperative works, on factors that motivate the establishment of partnerships; stimulate or inhibit the stability of R&D alliances; facilitate or damage the possibility of arriving at the aimed results. The main theoretical perspective adopted was the Institutional Theory. Data were treated through multivariate statistical analysis, then revealing strong isomorphic behavior of the researchers' perceptions in relation to all the 11 factors generated through the Factorial Analysis technique. This is believed to be due to coercion forces originated from the action of the funding governmental agencies that favor cooperative researches. As no well-structured evaluation system of the performed research activities actually exists in Brazil for allowing justifying partnerships in terms of their effectiveness and efficiency, the stimuli to alliances seem to originate from rationalized myths of the funding agencies. It was found that the process of cooperative research is still in a pre-institutionalized phase among the organizations studied.
organizational networks; cooperative R&D networks; institutional theory
