Alliances often face both free-riding and hold-up problems, which undermine the effectiveness of alliances in mobilizing joint fighting effort. Despite of these disadvantages, alliances are still ubiquitous in all types of contests. This paper asks if there are non-monetary incentives to form alliances, e.g., intimidating/discouraging the single player who is left alone. For this purpose, symme...

Advancing upon taxonomical research on interfirm alliances, we investigate the design of entrepreneurial firms’ alliances in more fine-grained terms by focusing on the specific contractual provisions that firms negotiate into their alliance contracts. Drawing upon transaction cost arguments, we examine the determinants of the contractual complexity of collaborative agreements in the German tele...

Despite the increasing number of strategic alliances, how to ensure their success is poorly understood. Studies suggest that up to seventy-five percent of alliances fail to meet their initial objectives due to a multitude of cultural, political, technological and human factors. If such an eclectic set of competencies is required for success, alliance management is clearly a difficult task for t...

This project considers the allocation of control rights between pharmaceutical and biotechnology firms. I find that allocations of rights are sensitive to the bargaining position of both firms. In addition, biotechnology firms entering their first alliance tend, on average, to relinquish more rights. I also explore if and when alliances begin to impact pharmaceutical firm shareholder value. On ...

This paper analyzes the phenomenon of strategic technology alliances. It is proposed that the concept of small worlds, which has been adopted from mathematical graph theory, is a useful model to combine two theoretical streams that have previously analyzed this phenomenon. These are the theory of social capital and the theory of structural holes. We outline a small worlds model, and apply to da...

This study analyzes international strategic alliances in the information industry. The purpose of this study is to clarify the strategic intention of an international alliance. Secondly, it investigates the influence of differences in the target markets of partner companies on alliances. Using an international strategy theory approach to analyze the global strategies of global companies, the st...

The past decade has seen increased scholarly interest in alliances. Authors have devoted attention to the factors underlying alliance formation and the attainment of alliance goals. Concurrently, scholars in the marketing strategy literature examined marketing’s contributions to firm strategy. The following paper explores the intersection between these two bodies of work: the attainment of mark...

Business alliances, an important form of relationship marketing, are becoming ubiquitous. However, many alliances are unsuccessful. The authors provide an integrative model of alliance success based on sub-models that rely on the resource-based, competence-based, relational factors, and competitive advantage views of alliances. The authors then show how a theory of competition, ‘‘resource-advan...

International strategic alliances have become overwhelmingly used in today’s business environment. However, most of these alliances feature a very high rate of unsuccessfulness. Usually, business partners’ cultural distance is regarded as one of the main reasons that lead these alliances to their failure. Therefore, it is thought that companies belonging to similar national cultural environment...

For those Western multinational enterprises (MNEs) such as HP and IBM under the pressure of ongoing E-Business transformation, strategic alliances can be a very useful way. In this paper, we compare two MNE subsidiaries (HP and IBM) in Taiwan to analyze their e-service alliance strategies and the similarities and differences. We find that Taiwanese firms are interested in forming strategic alli...