Search results

Further understanding of structural hierarchy is critically needed to assess the usefulness of different alliance structures. This study goes beyond transaction cost reasoning and incorporates social exchange theoretic perspective with the aim of capturing the concurrent relationships of alliance type and specific alliance experience with hierarchy of alliance structure.

Logistic regression analysis of data on 402 strategic alliances is used to test the two hypotheses advanced in the paper.

The social‐exchange‐based hypothesis is supported – specific alliance experience is negatively related to hierarchy of alliance structure. The transaction‐cost‐based hypothesis is not supported – hierarchy of alliance structure is not greater in horizontal alliances than in vertical alliances.

Strategic alliances with different purposes, such as R&D, supply procurement, marketing, co‐production, and co‐development, may have different industry norms of structuring alliances. This study does not account for these underlying differences within strategic alliances.

The social exchange theory‐based variable (i.e. specific alliance experience) has a more salient influence on alliance structure than does the transaction cost‐based variable (i.e. alliance type). The findings signal the relative importance of communal harmony compared to competitive rivalry.

The paper shows that results suggest that high bureaucratic costs of more hierarchical structures diminish the transaction cost economizing benefits of such structures. This is especially the case when alliances are not expected to experience very high levels of relational hazards (usually in vertical alliances). It appears that partnering firms' concerns with high bureaucratic costs may at times exceed the marginal benefits of control and coordination of exceedingly hierarchical alliance structures.

Strategic alliances have a variety of governance structures that can be broadly classified as joint ventures, minority equity alliances, and contractual alliances. This paper seeks to empirically examine the roles of four key determinants of governance structure choice, namely, joint R&D and joint marketing objectives, alliance management experience, and international partners.

Several hypotheses are developed regarding governance structure choice and are tested with data from 765 alliances. A multinomial logistic regression (logit) model is used for statistical analysis, with five control variables.

All hypotheses are supported, so that the roles of alliance objectives, alliance management experience, and international partners are demonstrated as being significant as determinants of governance structure choice in alliances.

Limitations stem from the data being from a single source, one that also relies on press announcements that may be biased toward larger alliances.

Briefly, alliance managers should find it useful to assess the relative presence of the four determinants of structural choice studied in this investigation in order to make an informed selection of the appropriate governance structure.

The study contributes to the knowledge of the key determinants of governance structure choice in strategic alliances by examining empirically, with a large sample of alliances from various industries, the significant roles of four factors, namely, joint R&D and joint marketing objectives, alliance management experience, and international partners.

Much of the extant evidence in the marketing literature posits that firms use strategic alliances to share resources, costs and risks as paths to performance improvements. Drawing from the organizational ecology theory, this study aims to propose a different rationale, namely, that strategic alliances protect a firm’s core structure – its stated goals, authority structure, core technologies and marketing strategies – by mitigating the need for hazardous changes in hostile environments.

This study collected quantitative data using market survey and analyzed the data with the regression method.

Using Chinese firms in three technology industries as the research setting, this research finds a positive and significant relationship between environmental hostility and core structure dynamism. Although strategic alliances themselves have no direct bearing on core structure dynamism, they are found to moderate this relationship negatively, that is, strategic alliances attenuate the relationship between environmental hostility and structural changes.

This paper argues that strategic alliances have significant moderating effects on firm performance, that is, firms use strategic alliances to outsource competence to partners and, thus, avoid internal turmoil. However, the moderating effect alone cannot explain the complexity of strategic alliances. There could exist other effects that remain unknown. In addition, individual-level factors could have significant impacts on strategic alliance management. Future studies should look into these issues to advance the authors’ knowledge on strategic alliances.

The findings of this study show that managers should outsource competence to partners when they experience turmoil in markets. Adapting to market turmoil internally could lead to market failure.

This study provides a new rationale for strategic alliances, that is, firms use strategic alliances to reduce market uncertainty. This rationale has not been reported in the existing literature.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how firms use the identities of their alliance partners in choosing initial governance structures in strategic alliances. It proposes that social identity from the perspective of an established firm participating in an inter-firm alliance can be constructed on the basis of ownership categories and market categories of the firm’s alliance partners.

The study focusses on a sample of 478 alliances involving 36 focal firms in the US semiconductor industry over a nine-year period (1995-2003). The sample is analyzed using logistic regression methods.

The author finds evidence suggesting that joint venture (JV) structures are more likely when an alliance has more partners that identify as privately held firms or subsidiaries of other firms. The results also suggest that JV structures are more likely when an alliance involves strong product market identity with partners and less likely when an alliance involves strong geographic identity with partners.

These findings provide some novel insights into potential heuristics that alliance managers use in making initial alliance structure decisions. In particular, this paper contributes to a growing stream of research that considers the optimal alliance structures for different partner configurations by showing the potential influence of partners’ identities in simplifying these important decisions.

We examine collaborative complexity arising from strategic alliances among competitors. In high technology industries, rapidly evolving and modular technologies increase the likelihood that collaborative alliances will develop between partners who also compete with one another. Partnering under these conditions involves choosing collaborative structures that foster the transfer and integration of some resources, while simultaneously protecting other resources from unintended transfer. Using resource-based, transaction cost, and industrial organization economic theories we develop a model to depict the risks and rewards of collaboration under different modes of competitive interdependence. Two dimensions underlie our conceptual model: resource interdependence and competitive interdependence. Resource interdependence is the degree of integration needed for the resources contributed by alliance partners as reflected in the nature of the resources and their co-specialization. Competitive interdependence gauges the similarity between partners in their overall strategic capabilities and customer markets. We conclude with a discussion of the contingent use of inter-organizational structures to enable partners to balance resource contributions and resource protection in collaborative-competitive relationships.

We propose that in addition to its resources and capabilities, a firm’s capital structure and financial health will act as an important determinant of its attractiveness as an alliance partner. Alliances with leveraged firms are prone to unplanned termination due to financial distress, which puts at risk the value embedded in the collaboration. As a result, ceteris paribus, highly leveraged firms will be viewed as less desirable partners in the market for interfirm collaboration when compared to low leverage firms. In support of this proposition, we find that when forming an alliance firms tend to partner with other firms with similar levels of leverage: low-leverage firms partner with other low-leverage firms while high-leverage firms partner with other high-leverage firms, as well as with lower quality ones. Furthermore, we show that alliances with highly leveraged firms are more likely to involve equity participation as a form of ex post protection, especially when they involve partners with relatively lower leverage. Finally, we show that leverage is negatively related to the intensity of alliance activity, suggesting that firms also maintain lower leverage in their capital structure in order to attract potential partners. Overall our results imply that financial policies regarding capital structure have an important role to play in alliancing activity.

Regional economic integration has been a major area of research in the field of international economics and international trade, with little attention being paid to the impact of these economic collaborations on the organizational strategies of firms within the economically integrated regions. By building on the organization‐environment relationship paradigm, this paper aims to address the impact of environmental changes associated with economic integration, market commonality and currency commonality, on the patterns and structures of strategic alliances within members of the economic community.

Using mixed linear models, the study looks at changes associated with the integration of the European Union and their effects on international alliances within the integrated area and among the various member countries.

The findings suggest that the emergence and the adoption of economic integration policies at the country level do impact the patterns and structures of strategic alliances practiced between member countries. Specifically, the adoption of common market policies among members of an economic community has implications on the pattern and structure of strategic collaborative relationships of firms within these member countries.

While regional economic integrations have accelerated, theoretical and empirical research addressing their impact on multinational strategies has yet to catch up.

The alliance governance – whether equity or non-equity based – through which an alliance is governed serves as a mechanism to protect a firm from partner's opportunistic behavior, manage resource dependence and facilitate knowledge sharing. Alliance governance structure also reflects the risk, reward and control that partners perceive in a relationship. In light of the conflicts and instabilities reported in strategic alliances, the purpose of this paper is to examine the interorganizational domain that affects the endurance and continuity of collaboration and explain how the alliance interface contexts determines the structuring of alliance governance.

An empirical examination of 179 strategic alliances, using survey and archival data conducted to test the hypothesized relationship between the choice of governance structure and the complexity of alliance task, balance of power and competitive scope between partners.

A multinomial logistic regression of the hypothesized variables revealed that the complexity of alliance task, balance of power, and competitive scope between partners are significantly related to the mode of alliance governance – whether non-equity, minority-equity, or joint venture.

This study makes a significant contribution to the understanding of the relationships between the contextual factors such as the alliance task, power dynamics, and competitive scope that shape the collaboration and structuring of appropriate alliance governance mode. Results of the study provide strong evidence for the hypotheses that the greater the task complexity, and greater the balance of power and scope of competition between partners, the alliance governance tends to be equity or joint venture based. Consistent with recommendations of several organizational scholars that the theory of alliance governance and performance must shift from individual partner firm to interaction domain and interface contexts (Luo, 2002; Gray and Wood, 1991; Oxley and Sampson, 2004), this study integrally examined the dyadic issues such as balance of power, task complexity, and the competitive scope and the dynamic role they play in decisions pertaining to alliance governance. While many extant studies on the choice of alliance governance structure have employed secondary data sources, the study employed data from survey measures (Gulati, 1995; Teng and Das, 2008; Oxley and Sampson, 2004) enhancing the validity of the results.

The purpose of this exploratory study is explaining the effects of control and interdependence on decision making at the level of product innovation projects in dyadic strategic alliances.

Drawing on alliance research, strategic decision‐making research and product innovation literature a conceptual framework is developed using a multiple case research methodology.

The empirical case results indicate that decision‐making effectiveness in product innovation projects is dependent on the nature of the decision‐making process which, in turn, is affected by alliance governance structure characteristics.

The case research results only gives an in‐depth understanding of the nature of the effects. A large‐scale quantitative study is needed to arrive at generalizations taking into account industry‐specific and firm‐specific factors.

Managers may want to take the effects on decision making into account when deciding on the alliance governance structure for a new product innovation project.

This paper contributes to earlier research first, by viewing product innovation as a joint activity for which not only one organization is responsible, and second, by relating alliance governance structure to decision making beyond the strategic management level at the level of product innovation projects.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship among ownership structure, information disclosure and benefits of control under Lab‐experimental frame, based on the ownership structure in China's stock market.

Theoretical Shapley value of shareholders was used as the representative of control right, and benefits of control in different experimental treatments were studied.

Experimental results show: first, more counterbalance of shareholders' control rights, less benefits of their control right. Accordingly, more chance to form core alliance for the major shareholder with small shareholders, less chance for them to get control right; second, the effect of information on benefits of control are mainly reflected in forming and maintaining the alliance; third, Shapley value of the major shareholder and the information determine the alliance type; fourth, control premium may be the cost of keeping the major shareholder's benefits safe and fifth, imperfect information is not always bad, concealing information partly can improve the distribution efficiency of a corporation.

The paper provides experimental analysis of the behavioral logic behind the benefits of control, which would help to explain the relationship among ownership structure, information disclosure and benefits of control.