Alliance management capabilities in sustainability‐oriented collaboration: Problematization and new research directions

Abstract

Sustainability‐oriented collaboration, a heterogeneous set of formal interorganizational arrangements that vary considerably in size, membership, focus and functioning, but share the same interest in addressing sustainability challenges of public concern, is becoming a mainstay of corporate agenda setting. Yet, the more firms interact on social and environmental issues, the more the burdens and tensions of collaborating for sustainability become apparent. Research and practice increasingly question whether an alliance management capability (AMC) perspective can be adopted to explain variability in collaboration effectiveness. With the aim to investigate whether, and to what extent, existing sustainability‐oriented collaboration research integrates or challenges mainstream theory on AMC, we adopt a problematization method to unpack the root assumptions underlying the AMC construct. We find that self‐interest in economic value creation and capture, the need for homogeneity to favour knowledge accumulation and learning on alliance management, and predictable patterns of AMC deployment are consistently assumed by scholars to predict success in alliance management. Accordingly, we analyse AMC assumptions’ current integration in the study of sustainability‐oriented collaboration, conducting a systematic literature review on collaborative capabilities developed for, during and in response to sustainability challenges. In so doing, we identify what distinguishes sustainability‐oriented collaboration from mainstream strategic alliances and the related implications on the collaborative capabilities firms should develop and deploy when dealing with sustainability challenges. We elaborate on these and their implications for AMC constructs to provide a future research agenda, which integrates further theoretical perspectives and broadens the scope of existing ones.

Problematizing Strategic Alliance Research: Challenges, Issues and Paradoxes in the New Era

“…This special issue includes four very interesting literature review pieces, which venture deeper into the phenomenon, and explore the opportunities, issues and paradoxes of strategic alliances while adopting alternative theoretical perspectives, methodological approaches and interpretations to address issues of managing strategic alliances and maximizing returns from them in the new strategic context. Vurro et al (2023) point to mounting evidence of the failure of siloed approaches, in the face of the systemic nature of grand challenges such as climate change and poverty. Suggesting that the initial enthusiasm for the promise of sustainability-oriented collaborations has been curbed by evidence of the complexity of successfully managing such collaborations, the paper asks whether an alliance management capability (AMC) perspective can fully explain variability in collaboration effectiveness.…”

Capacidades de alianças em uma empresa de organização de eventos B2B

“…It is composed of the ability to find and select the ideal partners to formalize an alliance, the ability to build and maintain relationships, and the ability to systematize and disseminate knowledge and lessons learned from previous experiences. These processes require constant development (Kohtamäki et al, 2023;Milagres & Burcharth, 2019;Mitrega et al, 2012;Vurro et al, 2024;Wang & Rajagopalan, 2015).…”

“…The use of (2) learning solutions based on technological tools is thus essential. Technology and the digitization of processes have a transformational character, especially when it comes to processes of initiation, coordination and intra-organizational relationships, in addition to, of course, to interorganizational processes that connect different firms (Autio et al, 2021;He et al, 2020;Vurro et al, 2024).…”

Exploring social enterprise legitimacy within ecosystems from an institutional approach: A systematic literature review and research agenda

“…We followed existing procedures for selecting papers for the SLR. Thereby, we excluded papers from the sample that are published in Q4-ranked journals based on the Journal Citation Report (JCR) or in journals that were not part of the JCR in WoS to focus on well-recognized and high-impact publications (Kraus et al, 2020;Vurro et al, 2023;Zahoor et al, 2020). After removing those articles, a sample of 230 articles remained for analysis.…”