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The concept of core competence underlies competence-based competition and competence-based management. When new firms get established, due to resource constraints, managers have to make conscious decisions to develop certain competencies and not others. In order to have all competencies that are required to be successful, firms look for strategic alliances and to leverage their partner firms’ competencies. In this paper, we develop a contingency model for firms that have to go for strategic alliances to explain which core competencies should be developed internally, which core competencies could be from the alliance partner, which type of alliance will be suitable and whether the firm should choose a short-term, long-term or permanent alliance. Using Hamel’s (1994) generic core competencies and the type of market (industrial or individual), we suggest which type of strategic alliance should be chosen for leveraging a partner’s competencies.

Drawing upon the importance of research and development (R&D) alliances in driving firm innovation performance, extant research has analyzed individually the impact of R&D alliance partner attributes on firm innovation performance. Despite such analyzes, research has generally underestimated the configurations of partner attributes leading to firm innovation performance. This research gap is interesting to explore, as firms involved in R&D alliances usually face a combination of partner attributes. Moreover, gaining a better understanding of how R&D partner attributes tie into configurations is an issue that is attracting particular interest in coopetition research and alliance literature. This paper aims to obtain a better knowledge of this underrated, but important, aspect of alliances by exploring what configurations of R&D alliance partner attributes lead firms involved in R&D alliances to achieve high innovation performance. To tackle this question, first, this study reviews the extant literature on R&D alliances by relying on the knowledge-based view of alliances to identify the most impactful partner attributes on firms’ innovation performance. This paper then applies a fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to explore the configurations of R&D alliance partner attributes that lead firms involved in R&D alliances to achieve high innovation performance.

This study selects 27 R&D alliances formed worldwide in the telecom industry. This paper explores the multiple configurations of partner attributes of these alliances by conducting a fsQCA.

The findings of the fsQCA show that the two alternate configurations of partner attributes guided the firms involved in these alliances to achieve high innovation performance: a configuration with extensive partner technological relatedness and coopetition, but no experience; and a configuration with extensive partner experience and competition, but no technological relatedness.

The research highlights the importance of how partner attributes (i.e. partner technological relatedness, partner competitive overlap, partner experience and partner relative size) tie, with regard to the firms’ access to external knowledge and consequently to their willingness to achieve high innovation performance. Moreover, this paper reveals the beneficial effect of competition on the innovation performance of the firms involved in R&D alliances when some of the other knowledge-based partner attributes are considered. Despite these insights for alliance and coopetition literature, some limitations are to be noted. First, some of the partners’ attributes considered could be further disentangled into sub-partner attributes. Second, other indicators might be used to measure firms’ innovation performance. Third, as anticipated this study applies fsQCA to explore the combinatory effects of partner attributes in the specific context of R&D alliances in the telecom industry worldwide and in a specific time window. This condition may question the extensibility of the results to other industries and times.

This study also bears two interesting implications for alliance managers. First, the paper suggests that R&D alliance managers need to be aware that potential alliance partners have multiple attributes leading to firm innovation performance. In this regard, partner competitive overlap is particularly important for gaining a better understanding of firm innovation performance. When looking for strategic partners, managers should try to ally with highly competitive enterprises so as to access their more innovative knowledge. Second, the results also highlight that this beneficial effect of coopetition in R&D alliances can be amplified in two ways. On the one hand, when the partners involved in the alliance have not yet developed experience in forming alliances. Partners without previous experience supply ideal stimuli to unlock more knowledge in the alliance because new approaches to access and develop knowledge in the alliance could be explored. On the other hand, this paper detects the situation when the allied partners are developing technologies and products in different areas. When partnering with firms coming from different technological areas, the knowledge diversity that can be leveraged in the alliances could drive alliance managers to generate synergies and economies of scope within the coopetitive alliance.

Extant research has analyzed individually the impact of R&D alliance partner attributes on firm innovation performance but has concurrently underestimated the configurations of partner attributes leading to firm innovation performance. Therefore, this paper differs from previous studies, as it provides an understanding of the specific configurations of R&D alliance partner attributes leading firms involved in R&D alliances to achieve high innovation performance.

The purpose of this paper is to explore and unbundle the complex processes underpinning development of alliance capabilities, particularly in the context of emerging country multinational enterprises. More specifically, this paper focuses on how firms internalize and translate knowledge generated from experiences gained by participating in international collaborations.

The authors adopt an exploratory case study approach to undertake in-depth processual analysis of alliance capability development in an Indian biopharmaceutical company. The authors focused their analysis on the initial four international alliances the company formed and identified key elements pertaining to alliance capabilities that the company internalized and those that it could not, as this was key in understanding alliance capability.

The research shows that based on experiences from previous alliances, the Indian organization was able to overhaul its negotiation and governance designing processes and practices as well as made robust changes to its internal communication and coordination practices. Interestingly, the company organization, however, did not make any significant changes to its processes and practices regarding partner selection.

The results from our study can be used by managers to develop processes and practices when it comes to developing alliance capabilities.

The paper is novel, as it addresses two specific gaps in the nascent alliance capability literature. First, it provides insights on how different constituent elements/aspects of alliance capability actually develop and integrate within the organizational system over time, and in the process, the paper identifies that some aspects are better internalized as compared to other aspects. Second, by focusing the attention on an Indian biopharmaceutical company, the authors attempt to address a gap in alliance capability development research, which has been neglected in emerging country multinational entities.

Alliances are unstable and while a number of explanations have been offered for understanding instability a motivational oriented approach remains underdeveloped. This paper seeks to provide a motivational oriented explanation for understanding alliance instability. Firms may enter into an alliance either with a promotion or a prevention mind set and this can be consequential for alliance development.

The authors draw upon regulatory focus theory and its applications in an alliancing context to derive implications for alliance management. Regulatory focus theory is now increasingly being used to explain various types of organizational phenomenon (e.g. contracting, leadership, alliances). The paper distinguishes between a promotion oriented and a prevention oriented mind set and explores the impact of the different mind sets at the alliance formation, operation, and the outcome stage.

A key finding is that different mind sets (promotion vs prevention) affect alliance formation, operation, and outcome. At the formation stage the mind sets may determine the success or failure of negotiations; at the operational stage they may determine if conflicts escalate or deescalate; while at the outcome stage they may determine whether the partners continue with or seek to exit from the alliance.

The different motivational orientations have implications for alliance negotiations, the management of the alliance during the operational phase, and/or the decisions that are made by alliancing firms at the outcome phase of the alliance. The paper develops implications for how alliances should be managed for attaining success.

The paper should be of interest to alliance managers as it will give them a new lens for understanding the drivers of alliance success and failure. The impact of motivation on alliance success and failure has not been studied to date and this paper provides a novel approach to assessing its impact.

Considers two forms of strategic alliances, technological and marketing, and examines how these alliances foster formation and maintenance of intellectual capital. Empirical evidence suggests that on average, strategic alliances do create value for shareholders that is consistent with the creation of intellectual capital. Between the two, technological alliances are potentially more beneficial than marketing alliances, and more likely to create intellectual capital. Empirical evidence is consistent with the notion that the gains from alliances are not shared equally by all the partners. When intellectual capital is created by the smaller or financially weaker partner, the return may be appropriately captured by the owner of such capital through strategic alliances. However, if the intellectual capital is created by the larger or financially stronger firm which moves first in an alliance relationship, the return on this intellectual capital may be subject to opportunistic exploitation by the late moving partner.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the effect of strategic alliances on firm performance and the moderating effect of firm size in retail firms in Nairobi County in Kenya.

Resource Dependency Theory was used to guide the study. The study adopted explanatory research design. Questionnaires were used to collect data from sample of 216 respondents through stratified and simple random sampling technique. The study used inferential statistics to test hypotheses.

Study findings indicated that joint marketing alliances, procurement-supplier alliances, joint manufacturing alliances and technology development alliances have significant and positive effect on firm performance. Based on the findings, creating a joint marketing, procurement-supplier, joint manufacturing and technology development alliances mostly enhance firm performance.

The study considered only one county out of 47, although this county hosts the capital city, where most of the firms considered are located. It therefore is representative of all counties and firms considered in this study. It also considered top management staff and thus may have an effect since the lower cadre staff were not considered. However, most of the required information was expected from top management since these are the ones who make decisions, and hence most affected by strategic alliances.

This study has practical implication on firm performance because it has established that strategic alliance improves on overall firm performance. This manifests itself in terms of improve productivity, production efficiency and profitability. It also helps in the availability of products to the end users.

Through improved productivity, efficiency and profitability, this translates to improved terms of payment of staff and hence improved quality of lives of their families and communities within which they live. It also enables the firms to participate more in corporate social responsibility projects which in turn improves the standard of living of the communities around them.

The study has provided an empirical insight on the importance of strategic alliance on firm performance. This is the first study done in the Kenyan context concerning strategic alliances formed by firms to improve on their performance especially on retail firms.

The article is based on research carried out in 1995 on a sample of UK‐based retailers that were involved in international joint ventures and international buying alliances. The research identified the differences and comparison between these forms of alliances in terms of the competencies and skills that were being transferred between members of the alliances. The findings suggest that joint venture relationships appear to be closer and of a more strategic nature in achieving competitive advantage than buying alliances. Joint ventures appear to make a greater contribution to product strategy and learning than do alliances. However, little difference was found between the two alliance forms in terms of skill transfers.

More than ever, as far as legislation permits, long‐haul airlines tend to group in alliances. This paper examines the historic developments of two alliances in terms of their potential for increasing profitability of individual airlines.

Fourteen in‐depth interviews were conducted with airline executives belonging to the two leading alliances, SkyTeam and Star Alliance, as well as with aviation experts. In addition to the recent literature on alliances theory, the Internet was used to obtain data from international organizations, consultancies, universities and airlines – members and non‐members of an alliance.

Star Alliance might be one step ahead of SkyTeam (in terms of scope, number of members, organization, age …). Star Alliance is not only bigger but its geographical scope is wider; the number of members in each region is more balanced. The Star Alliance Services GmbH as head organization provides members with a workforce dedicated solely to the goals of the alliance. But Star Alliance's advantage may be short‐lived, especially since the airline industry demonstrates one of the fastest dynamics of all industries, and government regulations change rapidly as well.

Inter‐firm agreements in the airline industry have undergone dramatic changes and the future will bring additional transformations. The dichotomy between endogamic and exogamic partnerships is used to explain these changes. Previous agreements were endogamies: alliances between companies with comparable profiles mostly centered on back‐office activities as in Global Distribution Systems. Current mega alliances, such as SkyTeam and Star Alliance, are exogamies. They are alliances between companies mostly originating from distinct geographic territories. As such, they built on differences between partners regarding their networks. Their current focus is on front‐office activities to better serve customers and the alliances have used publicity to attract more customers. The main thrust is to increase the number of passengers so as to increase revenues. It is forecast that these mega alliances will again change their emphasis to back‐office activities to benefit from economies of scale and decrease operating costs.Originality/valueIs of value in highlighting how the issues indifferent kinds of alliances are not managed the same way. In exogamic relationships, partners must learn about and adapt to each other. The qualitative differences that exist between organisations can be a threat to the success of the alliance and must therefore be managed. In addition, the two types of alliances do not produce the same results. Endogamies standardize processes to obtain benefits of scale in at least one stage of the value chain. Exogamic relationships, in contrast, develop qualitative benefits that result from a synergy of different resources.

To show how the key to successfully managing alliances is developing and implementing alliance metrics.

The case of “Acme Manufacturing” (a composite of several firms) is used to illustrate the theory and reasoning behind the creation and tracking of alliance metrics appropriate to the life cycle of the partnership. These ideas are then applied to the ongoing Avnet/HP alliance.

Understanding and applying unique metrics at each stage allows management to anticipate alliance challenges and increase flexibility and adaptability when faced with changing economic and market conditions. Across the life cycle stages the partners must learn to monitor two types of measurements – development metrics, commonly employed in the start‐up and high growth stages, and implementation metrics, engaged throughout the professional, mature, decline, and sustain stages of the life cycle.

This is a case study produced by a consultant specializing in alliance management. It has been peer reviewed but has not been subjected to independent audit.

Proactively managing alliances helps partners ensure value extraction, financial and non‐financial. Development metrics and implementation metrics can help alliance stakeholders understand and plan for the stages of the alliance life cycle while considering their knowledge transfer.

As the cases of Acme Manufacturing and Avnet/HP show, an understanding of alliance life cycles, cultures, and metrics can lead to successful planning, launching, and maintenance of a company's alliances.

This article aims to take a further step forward in examining those important business factors that will shape the future of best practice in the quality management of internal and external strategic alliances.

The article presents a speculative scenario on the future of strategic alliances in education, training, development and business, inspired learning by applying information and data from well‐established professional alliance management sources as the underpinning context for its guidelines.

Many different attempts have been and still are being made by business and academic institutions to set up working relationships that are intended to work well for both parties. These relationships travel under various titles, with the term “partnership” being the most common. Problems of sustainability and/or quality of outcomes are prevalent as a result of the alliance management perspective being taken on a limited understanding of the total relationship dynamics for success; too narrow a perspective on what dynamics have to be managed. Models for success are, however, readily available.

In the broader context there is a wealth of research, best practice and practical experience in the field of strategic alliance management. iPCo's current research is therefore focused on how this professional resource and experience can be adopted to provide a quality framework of management practice that will enable business management to ensure that they make the right choices in the selection and construction of their strategic learning relationships both internally and externally.

The need for major innovations in the management of lifelong training and learning is now well established. Trying to achieve the successful implementation of these developments on a piecemeal basis has, however, proved to be an unrewarding process for many managers. The inertia of large institutional bodies and the “not invented here” syndrome have been proved to slow down or sideline major innovations. Knowing the size of the problem in each situation and how to deal with it effectively and efficiently at the right level is now one of the main strategic imperatives for corporate university managers.