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Cobranding is increasingly popular as a strategy for commercial success. Brand positioning strategies are central to marketing, yet the impact of perceptions of parent brands’ positioning on consumers’ perceptions of cobrand positioning has not been investigated. The aim of the present study is to fill this gap.

Employing a quasi-experimental design, the authors create cobranding scenarios in three product categories (tablet computers, cosmetics, and smart phones). The data are collected via structured questionnaires resulting in 160 valid responses. The data are analyzed employing Partial Least Squares-based Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM), and consumer evaluation of cobrands is tested in relationship to the prior positioning of the parent brands, product fit and brand fit, along with post-alliance positioning perceptions of the partner brands.

The results confirm brand positioning as a robust indicator of consumer evaluation of cobrands. Positioning perceptions of partner brands are positively related to cobrand positioning perceptions. In addition, pre-alliance positioning significantly relate to post-alliance positioning, confirming cobranding as a viable strategy for partner brands.

The paper recommends research that could reveal the impact of differential brand equities of partner brands, such as, between a high-equity brand and a low/moderate-equity brand, mixed brand alliances – product/service; service/service, and at different levels of partner brand familiarity.

Managers should design cobrand positioning based on existing positioning perceptions of the partner brands, rather than focussing on product fit and brand fit.

The study demonstrates the focal role of positioning strategies of partner brands in consumer evaluation of cobrands.

The purpose of this paper is to extend the line of research on the ex ante valuation of the economic payoff from strategic alliances. The paper links a firm's related pre‐alliance situation to an alliance announcement, to predict how investors value the alliance.

The researchers collected data on marketing alliances in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries. Using an empirical model, three hypotheses predicting how investors value alliances in the light of their knowledge of how the firm is doing before the alliance announcement were tested.

The findings indicate that investors assign higher value to marketing alliances for firms with lower inventory liquidity and product demand. Investors, in fact, rewarded firms with weak pre‐alliance positions, indicating that the alliance was perceived as a useful strategy to turnaround the weak situation.

As is common with other event study research, the study is unable to predict the long‐term relationship between alliance announcements and performance of the alliance. A positive evaluation at the time of the announcement may not necessarily translate into long‐term success.

This research provides an important lesson for firms hoping to reap financial rewards from their alliance announcements. Firms may do well to time such alliance announcements to correspond with their internal situations.

This paper is believed to be one of the first to consider an additional piece of firm information in addition to an alliance announcement to gauge investor valuation of alliances. The research therefore extends existing research and offers a more complete understanding of how investors value alliances at their formation. The findings should be of interest to firms contemplating alliances, and enhance understanding of investor decision making.

Although brand alliance has become quite ubiquitous in the marketplace and attracted considerable interest amongst researchers, little research has investigated its effects on the brand equity of partners. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate why and how brand alliance affects the brand equity of the partners in an alliance.

The hypotheses were tested by analysing the data of 260 participants in China, which were collected from an experiment.

This research draws five conclusions: the brand equity of a pre-alliance partner has a positive effect on brand alliance evaluation; product fit and brand fit amongst partners also have a positive effect on brand alliance evaluation; alliance brand evaluation has a positive impact on the brand equity of a post-alliance brand; the brand equity of a pre-alliance partner exerts a positive effect on the brand equity of a post-alliance partner; and the spillover effect of brand alliance for a weak brand is stronger than that of a strong brand in an asymmetrical brand alliance.

This research introduces brand equity into the field of brand alliance. From the perspective of consumer perception, the authors measure brand equity and provide insights for a company to effectively enhance brand equity through brand alliance. The authors explore ways to increase the brand equity of partners through brand alliance. Additionally, the authors discuss the spillover effects of the brand equity of partners in symmetric and asymmetric brand alliances.

Traditional business models are undergoing a process of redefinition following the drive to develop new business structures that support competition. The result of this has led to the development of virtual organizations, which are founded on alliance structures. In this paper a case study is used to describe the way in which a telecommunications organization and other retail electricity organizations initiated a strategic alliance, so that they could improve their market position, financial stability and customer base. A case study is used to describe the way in which a telecommunications organization explored how a strategic alliance with retail electricity organizations would be structured. Pre‐alliance activities and its impact on alliance formation, such as the design of an information systems framework, are presented and discussed. The experiences identified from the case study provide a learning opportunity for those organizations that are seeking to seize new business opportunities through strategic alliances.

Many organizations like to get customers “onside” in their advertising by suggesting that they are somehow in business together. Slogans such as “Together we are stronger” are proffered partly as flattery and partly to imply thanks: We couldn’t have done it without you. There’s a touch of sanctimony about this. However, more genuinely, many organizations – particularly within the global information and communications technology (ICT) industry – are discovering the benefits of forming alliances to gain a strategic competitive advantage.

This paper presents a conceptual model of partners’ assessment of the performance of their co‐partners in a collaborative relationship. The model’s usefulness has been illustrated through a study of 12 collaborative arrangements between Danish and Ghanaian companies. The results indicate gaps in partners’ expectations and perceived performance of their co‐partners. The perceptual gaps have been explained with reference to differences in motives of collaboration, intensity of interaction, cultural differences as well as the active involvement of a catalyst institution in the development of the relationship. The paper also draws attention to the policy and strategy implications of the empirical evidence.

Considers firms’ management of knowledge creation, diffusion and implementation. In particular, examines the diffusion link in this chain and presents a new framework where an ocean of ideas flows much like an ocean current. Through its past innovative activity and its employees’ professional experiences, a firm is caught up in a “technology current”. The degree of knowledge diffusion across organizations depends on encouraging and thwarting this current’s forces. The framework suggests that the ease of knowledge diffusion depends on the degree of similarity in organizations’ technical prowess. As an example, knowledge flows in the semiconductor industry are examined through citations to Intel’s journal articles. The empirical findings show that Intel’s knowledge, codified in these articles, diffuses more quickly to organizations in Western Europe and Japan than those in Taiwan and Korea. This pattern coincides with geographic market leadership and suggests that knowledge networks exist across countries.

Assesses how branded ingredients affect consumer product quality perceptions, confidence in product quality perceptions, product evaluations, taste perceptions, purchase likelihoods, and reservation prices of host brands of varying quality. In two experiments, we find that branded ingredients consistently and positively affected moderate‐quality host brands, but only occasionally positively affected higher‐quality host brands. Suggests that managers of both moderate and higher‐quality host brands consider implementing branded ingredient strategies, albeit for different reasons. While moderate‐quality host brands can improve their competitive position by using branded ingredients, higher‐quality host brands generally do not. However, higher‐quality host brands may benefit most by securing the most desirable branded ingredients for their own use, thereby blocking moderate‐quality host brands from using a branded ingredient strategy to improve their competitive position.

We examine the benefits for firms participating in collaborations funded via minority equity placements. Selling firms, on average, realize significant increases in share value – strongly correlated with the size of the equity stake, its beta, and the relatedness of the two firms (by industry). Shares of purchasing firms, though, show neutral responses on average (but positive response for R&D intensive alliances). Further, purchasing firms have better financial performance than their industry peers in the years surrounding the announcement (suggesting, unlike joint ventures, that poor performance is not their motivation). Selling firms, however, may be motivated by poor operating performance.

Leadership decisions are among the most vexing issues that face an alliance partnership. Permanent leaders imply expectations about their treatment as employees, even after they are no longer an ideal fit. Staffing from among the partners’ human resources assumes that talent is not in short supply and implies a potential favoritism in the operation of the alliance. Interim management offers a unique and superior, albeit not perfect, alternative. Interim leaders may be particularly effective at facilitating an alliance start‐up and when the alliance is to transition from one stage of the organization’s life cycle to the next.