Search results

Suggests that strategic alliances have become a popular competitive weapon, yet knowledge of when effectively to use this interorganizational relationship remains scarce. Examines the use of strategic alliances in the information technology industry. Develops several propositions for the effective use of this competitive weapon, based primarily on the matching of the benefits of strategic alliances to existing and forecast situational characteristics of the information technology industry.

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.

This study investigates the effect of strategic internal critical factors on strategic alliance performance in an emerging market, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Multivariate statistical analysis technique Partial Least Square-Squared Equation Model is used for data analysis considering a survey of 260 alliance managers.

Environmental complexity moderates the relationship between strategic internal critical factors and strategic performance. A significant positive effect of strategic internal critical factors on corporation strategic performance was found. It suggests that environment and strategic alliance enable alliance managers and decision-makers to translate alliance strategies and improve the overall organization’s performance outcome, productivity, efficiency, availability of a product and profitability.

The findings disseminate beneficial implications for alliance managers regarding how they can best use their capability to maximize alliance performance. Realizing the antecedents of strategic alliance performance allows a manager to be sensitive about the influent factors and try to improve the alliance performance.

This paper shows how to create associations between interfirm coordination as a framework of new ventures for implementing radical technological change, firm performance in the post-innovation period, industry and firm innovative output.

This paper seeks to argue that managers need to apply a holistic and long‐term approach in their understanding of strategic alliances' paradigms to inform decisions. Owing to the complexity of strategic alliance scenarios it is often a difficult task for management to know what information is required in order to take such decisions. It is suggested here that six widely used motivational paradigms in the formation of interorganisational relationships (transaction cost economics, resource dependence, strategic choice, stakeholder theory, organizational learning, and institutional theory) can be used not only during the formation stages of alliances but also during an alliance's lifecycle to help in decision making.

The paper proposes a discussion of possible shortcomings in the literature on motivational paradigms based on a review of the pertinent literature and, with the help of previously published cases/examples, suggests a new conceptual perspective of the paradigms.

The paper explains how and why motivational paradigms could be viewed as an interrelated web of issues throughout a strategic alliance's entire lifecycle – and not just at their formation stage when, often, they are used singly and in isolation of one another. It is proposed that their continuous and holistic use contributes to a manager's awareness of possible issues and helps his/her strategic management and decision taking. This new perspective is presented conceptually in a model.

For decision makers and managers: the proposed perspective will enhance their management and decision‐taking processes by increasing their awareness and acting as an aide‐mémoire of issues they need to consider/investigate and will reduce the possibility of alliance failure. For educators, it will expand the scope of traditional alliance formation paradigms and inform their teaching and research.

This is a novel approach to a traditional theory that expands its scope and usefulness.

The purpose of this paper is to identify and assess an empirical description of how to respond to the needs of future human resource development, and any strategic alliances that have been made by STP Bandung and Bali to respond to global competition.

This study uses a qualitative naturalistic approach, with descriptive methods and case studies. The data were gathered through interviews, observations, and study of the documents. The sampling technique used was purposive. Data analysis was performed using data display, data reduction, and data verification through triangulation process.

STP Bandung and Bali have carried out various strategic measures through the improvement of both their internal and external environments. Strategic alliances with other institutions are oriented toward the improvement of the quality of education. This is in accordance with the vision and mission of the institution where priorities were put on joint programs, organization of students’ internship programs, support for the development of educational institutions, and optimizing the implementation of the three responsibilities of higher education in Indonesia, both in terms of quantity and quality, along with building a culture of research for lecturers.

This research still needs improvement since there are some limitations in generating its conclusion. Therefore further research is recommended to increase sample number, i.e. by including, among others, students, graduates, employer communities, and region leaders, and also to involve other private, tourism higher education centers.

This study implies that in carrying out its core business, namely, tourism education, STP Bandung and Bali need to strengthen and cultivate the academic and research cultures among faculty members. In conjunction with contributions from research literature and practice, this study confirms the importance of strategic alliances between institutions of tourism education, at the national, regional, and international levels, that are producers of human resources for tourism for the government. Being graduates, they serve as competent members of a government agency responsible for managing a destination or other tourism sectors, at local, provincial, national, regional, and international levels.

This study also implies that the Ministry of Tourism should implement the model of strategic education management through strategic alliances, so as to increase the capacity of the human resources for tourism, thus directly or indirectly contributing to the quality of city/regional or tourism destination.

Research studies on strategic alliance in the field of higher education, especially in the field of tourism are still very limited. This study provides a breakthrough that strategic alliances can not only be done in the business world, but also in the education sector. Results of research on strategic alliances in higher education in Indonesian tourism sector can be used as a reference for higher education providers in tourism at regional and international levels.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss corporate co‐branding value and create the model of evaluating co‐branding value. The connotation of the model is to consider the compatibility of strategic partners such as strategic alliance compatibility and brand alliance compatibility; in addition, this research can estimate the corporate co‐branding value through this model to evaluate and discuss the effect of co‐branding effect for the future.

In the past, few researchers investigated the measurement of corporate co‐branding value in the marketing sector. The measurement of intangible assets, on the other hand, is well established in accounting finance. However, the concepts and methods of accounting finance cannot easily be applied to other areas. This paper provides a straightforward concept that uses a heuristic model to combine the notion of co‐branding synergy. According to the literature, the combination of strategic and brand alliances can affect the concept of co‐branding value. This research revises the concept of compatibility from Park and Lawson by replacing the concept of product attribute similarity with the ratio of sales growth, and the brand concept consistency with the ratio of market share after brand alliance.

This study verifies the proposed model synthetically with a real case (Sony‐Ericsson). Conversely, this research anticipates analyzing the model in different perspectives and observing the variation of different combinations to obtain potential managerial implications for corporate managers. This research concludes: brand alliance compatibility has limited effect on corporate co‐branding value; strategic alliance compatibility is the major power to drive the direction of corporate co‐branding value; and the trend of co‐branding value is the important indicator for business managers.

Insufficient information may generate incorrect or unclear trends if the year of co‐branding is too short. This is also a major limitation of the authors' research. Thus, more real‐world cases can be conducted (such as Miller and Coors) in the future to elaborate upon the model.

The proposed model helps enterprises estimate their current co‐branding value using existing financial statements and market share data and identify the degree of alliance influence to their revise brand strategies. The estimated co‐branding values in this study can help managers identify their market position and execute existing co‐brand strategies. Managers can utilize this information to revise their management direction or strategies. Based on these arguments, this research enhances existing co‐branding knowledge and offers significant contributions by presenting more real cases (e.g. Miller and Coors) in the future. In other words, this work is both an avenue and a blueprint for future co‐branding research.

The paper devises a novel concept for estimating corporate co‐branding value based on the synergies between strategic and brand alliances. To illustrate the proposed model, this study analyzes the Sony Ericsson example since it has survived for several years. Analytical results reveal that strategic alliance and brand alliance variations have significant influences on co‐branding value changes. Results also reveal that strategic alliances have a greater effect on co‐branding value than brand alliances, which indicates that a good alliance strategy may generate a superior co‐branding effect.

An information‐driven, techno‐economic paradigm based on the microprocessor has emerged and is having a direct impact on the formation and management of strategic alliances. Strategic alliances are being forged between members of the computing, telecommunications and media industries to develop a supporting information infrastructure. Technology from the new infrastructure will affect strategic alliance activity in most industry sectors. Presents a brief review of strategic alliance definitions and taxonomies. Analyses a case study of an international hotel group operating within the Australasian region using a selected strategic alliance taxonomy against a range of information and communication technologies. Presents some key findings relating to the implementation of these technologies and their impacts on forming and managing strategic alliances.

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.

Trust entails the assumption of risk by the trustor to the extent that the trustee may act in a manner unaligned with the trustor's interests. Before a strategic alliance is formed, each firm formulates a subjective assessment regarding whether the other firm will behave in a trustworthy manner and not act opportunistically. To inform this partner analysis and selection process, the authors leverage the concept of value of information to quantify the benefit of information gathering activities on the trustworthiness of a potential trustee.

In this paper, the authors develop a decision model that explicitly operationalizes trust as the subjective probability that a trustee will act in a trustworthy manner. The authors integrate the concept of value of information related to information gathering activities, which would inform a trustor about a trustee's trustworthiness.

Trust inherently involves some degree of risk, and the authors find that there is practical value in carrying out information gathering activities to facilitate the partner analysis process. The authors present a list of trustworthiness indicators, along with a scoring sheet, to facilitate learning more about a potential strategic alliance partner.

The need for a quantitative model that can support risk-based strategic alliance decision-making for partner analysis represents a research gap in the literature. The modeling of strategic alliance partner analysis decisions from a value of information (VOI) perspective adds a contribution to the trust literature.

Based on theories of organizational learning and strategic considerations, this study aims to develop a strategic contingency model for technology alliance and identify how alliance‐specific factors, strategic factors, and organizational capability factors influence firms to acquire competencies and competitive advantages through technology alliance.

A six‐page, 94‐item survey questionnaire was developed and mailed to top‐level managers of the semiconductor firms in Taiwan. A total of 63 valid responses were received.

The study results indicate that firms with higher absorption orientation, higher risk reduction orientation, higher R&D scale economy orientation, and higher top management team experiences tend to perform better in acquiring competitive advantages. In addition, the strategic fit between strategic factors, organizational capability factors and technology alliance choice could lead firms to better competitive advantage.

Although the results of this study are fruitful, several suggestions could be made for academicians and business practitioners. First, the respondent rate of this study is low and could be improved. Second, in addition to the strategic contingency model as developed in this study, more research factors could be further investigated. Third, more case studies could be conducted to reconfirm the results of this study.

The major contribution of this study is to investigate what critical factors would influence the choice of a technology alliance model, and what effects the influencing factors have on the relationship between a technology alliance model and the intended competency development. The results of this study provide very important references for academicians and practitioners to investigate the effectiveness of technology alliance.