It is this paper’s aim to examine strategies taking into account companies’ resource base and individual goals companies follow in order to achieve a competitive advantage using innovation cooperation. First different types of innovation cooperation are deduced according to relevant dimensions. Second the theoretical background for creating competitive advantage is explained including the different motives companies pursue when entering innovation cooperation. Companies are modeled according to their innovation strategy, their aims and their set of resources. These ideal types of companies are in a third step assigned to the different types of innovation cooperation. Using a confirmatory case study of eight companies which all are involved in different innovation cooperation the assignment of the different strategic types of companies to the different types of cooperation is empirically tested.