Alliance Capability as a Mediator Between Experience and Alliance Performance: An Empirical Investigation into the Alliance Capability Development Process*

Abstract

This study centers around the way in which firms can enhance alliance performance through the development of an alliance capability. Whereas most research has focused on inter-firm antecedents of alliance performance (i.e. factors influencing the quality of the relationship), research on intra-firm antecedents points to prior experience and internal mechanisms fostering knowledge transfer. As little is known about how firms need to develop an alliance capability, this study aims to uncover the relationships between critical concepts underlying the alliance capability development process. To this end, the results of a worldwide survey among 151 firms and expert interviews yield a number of findings. First, a model of alliance capability development is proposed which is derived from a multitude of theories and links experience, microlevel mechanisms, routines, capabilities and performance. Second, whereas prior research has shown that experience is a key determinant of alliance performance, our study finds that alliance capability mediates between experience and performance.These results provide empirical evidence of the need for firms to leverage prior experience by dispersing and sharing knowledge through micro-level mechanisms.These results extend current understanding of the critical intra-firm determinants of alliance performance and the underpinnings of capability development research in general. Moreover, they also enable firms to take appropriate action at the microlevel.2

Safeguarding SMEs dynamic capabilities in technology innovative SME-large company partnerships in South Africa

“…This finding corroborates results reported by Kale et al (2002) and Heimeriks and Duysters (2007), implying that when SMEs have the ability to access and manage external knowledge and external complementary assets, this will increase the likelihood of partnership success. In sum, having external or network capabilities has a positive effect on collaboration outcomes, which confirms H 1c.…”

How and When Socially Entrepreneurial Nonprofit Organizations Benefit From Adopting Social Alliance Management Routines to Manage Social Alliances?

“…As suggested in the literature, managers evaluated the alliance performances, so we employed a single source to assess our independent and outcome variables (Heimeriks and Duysters 2007;Lavie et al 2012;Schilke and Goerzen 2010). To reduce the potential common method bias, we followed Podsakoff et al's (2012) suggestion to organize the data collection process to ensure the anonymity and confidentiality of the responses, emphasizing that there are no right or wrong answers, and covering the items relating to the predictor variables before those relating to the outcome variables.…”

“…According to the RBT, organizational routines-rulebased behavioral patterns for interdependent corporate activities and operational processes-can be valuable organizational resources (Barney et al 2011;Grant 1991 The theory emphasizes that employing a specific set of organizational routines allows the organization to perform certain tasks that result in superior performance in different types of strategic activity (Black and Boal 1994;Grant 1991). In the realm of alliance management, alliance management routines reflect a specific set of organizational routines that enables alliance partners to manage the dynamics within the alliance relationship systematically (Draulans et al 2003;Heimeriks and Duysters 2007;Schilke and Goerzen 2010). We focus on five specific alliance management routines: interorganizational coordination, alliance portfolio coordination, interorganizational learning, alliance pro-activeness, and alliance transformation.…”

“…Prior work has emphasized that the implementation of routines related to alliance management encourages interactions among the alliance partners (Draulans et al 2003;Heimeriks and Duysters 2007). This is because such routines can guide alliance partners' actions to actively engage and communicate with alliance partners in order to coordinate their activities in the alliance or to learn from each other.…”

“…First, according to the resourcebased theory, alliance management routines comprise a set of specific organizational routines through which the organization can systematically manage firm-firm-based alliance relationships to overcome organizational differences (Heimeriks and Duysters 2007;Schilke and Goerzen 2010). Despite acknowledgement of the importance of managing the SA relationship systematically (e.g., Liu and Ko 2011a;Samu and Wymer 2013;Simpson et al 2011), whether alliance management routines in the SA context (SA management routines, thereafter) can also impact on SA performance remains unresolved and underexplored due to a recognition that different sets of management tools may be required to manage the SA relationship (e.g., Selsky and Parker 2005).…”