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This paper has a threefold purpose. First, we offer a literature review on alliance capability based on strategic and competence-based management literature. Second, we extend existing literature on alliance capability by breaking this concept down into five subcapabilities, each of which is linked to a stage of the alliance life cycle. Finally, we suggest how firms can support these capabilities through structural, technological, and people-related tools and techniques. We argue that current literature has focused mainly on organization-wide characteristics, the general alliance function, and alliance experience to explain the level of alliance capability. Although we acknowledge the importance of these elements, we stress that more attention needs to be given to the various stage-specific components, actions, and supportive mechanisms that can result in an improved alliance capability.

This volume of Advances in Applied Business Strategy (AABS) presents a collection of studies exploring different ways in which an organization's competences can be enhanced to create competitive advantage that is enduring or intendedly transitional.

Strategic technology partnering (STP) is considered to be significant for the access to novel technologies that are unknown to organisations. However, the performance heterogeneities within organisations can be explained by STP capabilities. Hence, the purpose of this paper is threefold: first, to provide a classificatory framework by categorising the various STP capabilities; second, to draw conclusions from the analysis of the empirical findings; and third, to guide further publications and identify future research needs.

The present paper adopts a systematic literature review (SLR) methodology. In this research, the extant empirical research on STP capabilities will first be classified and integrated within a classificatory framework. Lastly, the review insights will provide methodological suggestions along with theoretical themes for future research that have not been yet explored.

The study findings show that there is a strong need for a clear and unified terminology for the distinctive capabilities of STP and research has mainly highlighted certain common capabilities while other essential ones lack analysis. The SLR further reveals that most research has been quantitative in nature relying on secondary database research.

This SLR provides a thorough overview of prior research on STP capabilities investigating 65 articles published in highly ranked peer-reviewed journals, spanning a 22-year period from 1992 to 2014. In sum, his review structures extant STP capabilities literature into a proposed classificatory framework referred to as “CLONT-framework” and highlights its critical importance in strategic management and innovation research from a theoretical, empirical, and practical point of view.

The purpose of this article is to propose and discuss a systematic theoretical classification of alliance portfolios that allows to elucidate and develop the concept.

The study applies a conceptual approach. A review of the literature was carried out to support the conclusions of this paper.

The results of the classification identify three types of alliance portfolio, according to the level of management that each of them requires: additive, strategic and managed and strategic. These portfolio typologies are analyzed in an evolutionary perspective.

This article is of interest to managers as it emphasizes the management of the alliance portfolio, highlighting the elements or characteristics that determine the transition from one type of portfolio to another.

This paper contributes to the consolidation and reorientation of the extensive research into alliance portfolios and proposes a systematic classification that can help to interpret the results of research and guide future studies.

The characteristics of a particular organizational culture may affect performance in achieving the objectives of international joint ventures (IJVs), a type of partnership that is often used in international business relations between developed and emerging countries. The purpose of this paper is to analyse whether the underlying dimensions that characterize organizational culture in these countries may affect firms’ performance, specifically their competitiveness, effectiveness and efficiency.

The survey conducted for this study was addressed to Spanish-Moroccan IJVs trading in Morocco. The research hypotheses were tested using multivariate analysis techniques (exploratory factor analysis and linear regression model).

Based on information provided by the CEOs of Spanish-Moroccan IJVs between small- to medium-sized firms, the present study shows that levels of competitiveness, effectiveness and/or efficiency in these organizations are influenced by the involvement of staff in management, the degree of centralization of decision taking and the firms’ emphasis on results or on procedures.

This research contributes to the knowledge of the main factors related to the organizational culture of joint ventures that influence competitiveness, effectiveness and efficiency achieved.

The value provided by this research lies in the sample examined, in its focus on a very common type of partnership between SMEs, which has been little studied previously, and in the fact that the results obtained are extensible to other realities, such as partnerships between European companies and those from countries with similar characteristics (located in Africa or in countries where an Arab culture prevails).

As companies seek to continually innovate to remain globally competitive, they also need to be mindful of the impact of the potential associated supply chain risks. Hence, the purpose of this study is to explore the causal nexus of relationships linking supply chain risk management (SCRM) and strategic technology partnering (STP) capabilities (i.e. organizational capabilities, technological and innovative capabilities, learning and exploitation capabilities, complementary capabilities and network and partnership capabilities) as identified by Kilubi (2016).

The authors investigate STP capabilities that may positively influence SCRM and in turn foster organizational performance. By using conceptual theory building, the authors create a conceptual framework and use it to guide future investigation through research propositions. Social capital theory serves as the theoretical background.

Five STP capabilities have been identified as positive mediators for the relationship between SCRM and organizational performance, in particular flexibility and responsiveness.

This paper focuses on bridging the gap and identifying commonalities between two principal research disciplines, STP and SCRM, examining how these can be used to assist in the controlling and management of future risks. This study contributes to the ongoing development of SCRM and STP by integrating insights from social capital theory, supply chain management and strategic management.

This study aims to investigate the influence of transaction cost (TC) factors and the moderating influence of firm capability factors on the extent of domestic outsourcing of a multinational corporation (MNC) subsidiary.

A new research framework is developed comprising four constructs and six research hypotheses, coupled with international experience (IE) and subsidiary scale (SS) as moderating constructs. Applying the regression model, the hypotheses were tested on data from MNC subsidiaries engaged in manufacturing in Taiwan, based on the TC theory, resource‐based view, and outsourcing literature.

The TC factors, including environmental dynamism and subsidiary technology level, are negatively related with degree of domestic outsourcing. Moreover, the MNC IE and SS can reduce the TCs, thus increasing the degree of domestic outsourcing by MNC subsidiaries at the high environmental dynamism and subsidiary technology levels.

The study data were obtained from MNC subsidiaries operating in Taiwan, and the single country research design is a limitation of this study.

This study provides useful insights into how MNCs and subsidiaries should concentrate on the factors that increase the TCs of domestic outsourcing. Moreover, MNCs and subsidiaries must endeavor to cultivate and apply capabilities to mitigate TCs and fully realize the benefits of domestic outsourcing.

This study demonstrates that TC factors can also be applied to examine the outsourcing strategies of firms operating in less advanced countries. Additionally, the capability factors of MNCs and subsidiaries can reduce TCs, thus increasing domestic outsourcing by subsidiaries.

Firms report varied levels of success in relation to using alliances to aid in new product development (NPD). This study aims to investigate internal processes that might influence the experience of alliance success. Specifically, this study investigates the role of mediating and moderating mechanisms underlying the alliance orientation (AO)–new product success relationship, while also investigating the impact of the level and consistency of AO. The primary goal is to understand the importance of a firm’s maintaining a consistent focus upon alliance scanning, coordination and learning.

A survey was conducted to collect data from 141 Taiwanese electronics companies. The proposed model and hypotheses were tested using path analysis in analysis of moment structures.

AO improves the success of new products indirectly through the enhancement of product program innovativeness and NPD decision-making flexibility. The positive effect of AO on product program innovativeness and NPD decision-making flexibility is heightened when a firm consistently carries out a series of alliance management activities, including alliance scanning, coordination and learning. Market turbulence and the intensity of competition differentially affect the association between product program innovativeness and NPD decision-making flexibility and new product success.

The measures were self-reported and may result in the threat of common method bias. While this study focused upon protecting against and assessing this bias, collecting data from multiple sources would have helped to eliminate the bias. Further, the sample consisted of Taiwanese electronics firms. This makes it difficult to generalize this study’s findings to other industrial contexts.

While AO may be viewed as a dynamic capability, product program innovativeness and NPD decision-making flexibility represent competitive advantage in NPD program and process, respectively. Managers should not focus only on competitive advantage in NPD while overlooking the development of dynamic capabilities, as this study’s results demonstrate that both elements must work in tandem. AO is relevant at higher levels of the organizational hierarchy, while product program innovativeness and decision-making flexibility are operational, demanding cross-functional coordination and involvement within a firm. Senior executives ought to not only confirm the appropriate provision of their resources to activities and actions associated with product program innovativeness and decision-making flexibility in NPD but also continually monitor and assess whether the inputs of AO lead to desirable competitive advantage in the context of NPD.

This study sheds light on the underlying mechanism through which AO improves new product success. This research proposes two different aspects of AO, level and consistency, and empirically identifies their interactive effect in the context of NPD. The findings offer specific guidelines for the assessment and implementation of AO to improve new product success. Consistency, especially, has not been investigated in relation to alliance-generated new product success.

The purpose of this paper is to explore drivers of alliance formation in a specialized supply chain from a manager’s perspective, focussing on firm-specific resources, resources embedded in inter-firm relationships and capabilities under the control of the focal firm.

This paper focusses on the resource-based view to obtain insights from the analysis of a manager survey conducted in Canada’s beef sector, applying a logistic regression approach to study alliance formation.

In identifying significant roles for resource richness and diversification of resource usage, the analysis highlights the importance of resource characteristics underlying factor market imperfections as drivers of alliance formation in a single primary input supply chain. The results suggest that resource heterogeneity is important for alliance formation and organizational success in specialized supply chains.

If previous alliance-related experience of managers, controlled for in the underlying cross-sectional survey, serves as an approximation for persistent unobservables impacting the alliance formation decision, we may face spurious state-dependence.

Managers interested in building compatible alliances in specialized single primary input supply chains may benefit from an improved understanding of the differential role of resource characteristics and resource heterogeneity for alliance formation, as these can function as a source of competitive advantage.

The analysis provides new insights from an individual manager’s perspective on alliance formation drivers in a specialized agri-food supply chain, thereby solidifying extant findings on alliance formation obtained in other sectors. The study contributes to the understanding of the role of resources in alliance formation with regard to prior relationship experience, resource heterogeneity and thus causal ambiguity, thereby also contributing to the debate of the role of relational capabilities vs firm-internal resources for sustained competitive advantage.