Share the Fame or Share the Blame? The Reputational Implications of Partnerships

We use an adverse selection model to study the dynamics of firms' reputations when firms implement joint projects. We show that in contrast with projects implemented by a single firm, in the case of joint projects a firm's reputation does not necessarily increase following a success and does not necessarily decrease following a failure. We also study how reputation considerations affect firms' decisions to participate in joint projects. We show that a high quality partner may not be preferable to a low quality partner, and that a high reputation partner is not necessarily preferable to a low reputation partner.