In biand multilateral interactions, parties frequently make weak commitments, i.e., commitments to future actions from which they may nonetheless deviate at some cost. For example, partners in a strategic alliance usually increase their mutual commitment step by step, where intermediate stages imply only a weak commitment. This paper proposes a new mechanism by which weak commitments lead to im...

The literature on strategic alliances has for some time included attention to the issue of risk in these relationships. Typically, in researchers' conceptualizations, risk is manifested in terms of uncertainty regarding partner performance outcomes, and uncertainty about cooperation among alliance partners. Underlying both dimensions is the notion of an alliance partner's risk profile an organi...

Many people contribute to public goods but stop doing so once they experience free riding. We test the hypothesis that groups whose members know that they are composed only of “likeminded” cooperators are able to maintain a higher cooperation level than the most cooperative, randomly composed groups. Our experiments confirm this hypothesis. We also predict that groups of “like-minded” free ride...

From a system thinking perspective, competition/cooperation boundaries govern the evolution of a firm’s adaptive strategic behaviour and drive it towards its desired objectives. By analyzing different scenarios using a system dynamic simulation approach and considering market competitive dynamics, this study explores the volume flexibility measure considering both the operating environment and ...

The relative merits of cooperation and self-interest in an ensemble of strategic interactions can be investigated by using finite random games. In finite random games, finitely many players have finite numbers of actions and independently and identically distributed (iid) random payoffs with continuous distribution functions. In each realization, players are shown the values of all payoffs and ...

Networks utilizing modern communication technologies can offer competitive advantages to those using them wisely. But due to the existence of network effects, planning and operating cooperation networks is difficult. In this paper, the strategic situation of individual agents deciding on network participation is analysed. A systematic equilibrium analysis using computer-based simulations reveal...