The impact of context and model choice on the determinants of strategic alliance formation: Evidence from a staged replication study

Abstract

Research summary: Endogenous characteristics of alliance network structure have repeatedly been shown to predict future alliance ties in the strategic management literature. Specifically, the concepts and measures of relational, structural, and positional embeddedness (per Gulati and Gargiulo, 1999), as well as interdependence, are foundational for many studies. We explore these determinants of alliance formation by replicating the baseline analyses of Ahuja, Polidoro, and Mitchell's, 2009 SMJ article. We examine the impact of empirical choices with respect to time period, underlying data generating model, and industry by isolating each effect in turn. We demonstrate that while geographic similarity and product-market similarity each robustly predict the interdependence effect, the effects of both technological similarity as well as the embeddedness predictors are sensitive to context and/or method.Managerial summary: Our examination of alliance formation in the chemical and semiconductor industries during the 1990s demonstrates how new alliances may be predicted by both the technical, geographic, and product-market fit of potential partners as well as characteristics of each partner's previous network participation. Comparing our results to an earlier study, we find that geographic and product-market similarity predict alliance formation across both industries and time frames while prior ties between partners predict alliance formation only when these industries are less mature. Other network participation indicators generate nuanced effects, which underscore the importance of quasi-replications of alliance formation across industries and time periods in building evidence-based management theories.

With whom do firms form ties? A meta-analysis on the influence of embeddedness and proximity on inter-organizational tie formation

“…These meta-analytical findings therefore confirm our initial idea of the complementarity of embeddedness and proximity (also acknowledged in recent research, e.g. Ghosh et al (2016);Mindruta, Moeen, and Agarwal (2016)). It shows that a parsimonious theory of tie formation needs to consider both.…”

“…Ghosh, Ranganathan, and Rosenkopf (2016), for instance, replicated the study of Ahuja, Polidoro, and Mitchell (2009), but observed an opposite relational embeddedness effect. With respect to structural and positional embeddedness, Rosenkopf and Padula (2008) state that: "In contrast to extant studies, however, our results show that [structural embeddedness] has no significant effect on new alliance formation among firms residing in different clusters [and] neither [positional embeddedness] nor [status similarity] affects alliance formation within clusters" (p. 680).…”

Creating High-Performance Organizations in Asia: Issues to Consider

“…Our research aim was to use the data that was collected from organizations in Asian countries, using de Waal's HPO Framework, to identify the main organizational areas which have to be strengthened in order for 'the typical Asian organization' to be able to transform into an HPO. We realize there is no such thing as 'a typical Asian organization' but it is possible to group organizations according to their regional location into a more or less homogeneous group for research purposes, as researchers have done before us (for instance Ghosh et al, 2016;Hofstede, 1980;Kloudova and Stehlikova, 2010).…”

Effect of Positional Embeddedness on Tour Supplier Integration: Chinese Evidence

“…Briefly, centrality, structural hole, and closeness centrality are three typical positional attributes. Ghosh et al (2016) used combined centrality to simulate positional embeddedness [15]. The extent of positional embeddedness can be measured by three indicators, which are degree centrality, betweenness centrality, and closeness centrality [25][26][27], in order to analyze the impact of each positional attribute on the resource integrating mechanism.…”