How do an alliance firm’s strategic orientations drive its knowledge acquisition? Evidence from Sino-foreign alliance partnership
Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing
ISSN: 0885-8624
Article publication date: 14 December 2018
Issue publication date: 12 March 2019
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate how a Chinese firm’s strategic orientation impact its knowledge acquisition from its foreign alliance partners through governance mechanisms used in the Sino-foreign alliance partnership.
Design/methodology/approach
This research first proposes an integrated model which links a firm’s strategic orientations (entrepreneurial and market orientations), governance mechanism (contract and trust controls), and its knowledge acquisition together. Then, this research collected data from 198 Chinese firms involved in Sino-foreign alliances to test the conceptual model.
Findings
For entrepreneurial-oriented alliance firms, a moderate level of contract and a high level of trust are the most efficient uses of control mechanisms for Chinese firms’ knowledge acquisition. In comparison, for market-oriented alliance firms, both contract and trust control mechanisms should be used at the moderate level to achieve maximum knowledge acquisition from their foreign partners.
Originality/value
By introducing a new antecedent for the choice of control mechanisms in the context of Sino-foreign alliance relationships, this study empirically finds a non-linear relationship between contract control and knowledge acquisition and confirms the significant role of trust in facilitating knowledge acquisition between alliance partners from the perspective of alliance firms in emerging markets.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 71502066], [grant number 71832008], [grant number 71572109], and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China [grant number 3102017OQD036].
Citation
Yang, Q., Liu, Y. and Li, Y. (2019), "How do an alliance firm’s strategic orientations drive its knowledge acquisition? Evidence from Sino-foreign alliance partnership", Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, Vol. 34 No. 2, pp. 505-517. https://doi.org/10.1108/JBIM-05-2018-0158
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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