Towards a framework for managing strategic tensions in dyadic interorganizational relationships

Alliance strategy: context, process, and requirements

“…Industrial marketers' research on interaction, value in use, and service dominant logic (Grönroos, 2011b) relates to organization science studies on relational value creation (Dyer and Singh, 1998), episodes of network cooperation , network and societal level discourses on legitimacy of change (Vaara et al, 2006), tensions (Van Fenema and Loebbecke, 2014), and network learning (Gibb, 2016). Moreover, scholars working on the edge of industrial marketing and organization science have acknowledged the embeddedness of network interaction in organizational processes .…”

“…Moreover, performance associated with (progression of) phases remains ill understood. Literature has repeatedly reported on alliances that fail, get stalled or follow non-linear trajectories (Van Fenema and Loebbecke, 2014;Berends et al, 2011;Doz, 1996). So, while strategic formation of inter-organizational cooperation and its idealized phases has received ample attention, the actual processes of collaborating across organizational boundaries (Majchrzak et al, 2015;Pitsis et al, 2004) and delivering performance (Bititci et al, 2012) appear challenging.…”

“…While cooperation has been lauded for reinforcing an organization's strategic position, strategic risks have been acknowledged as well. For instance, controlling for knowledge leakage and opportunism also characterizes strategic-economic research on inter-organizational cooperation and performance management (Möller and Rajala, 2007;Van Fenema and Loebbecke, 2014). A partner may absorb resources and undermine their unique qualities (Wernerfelt, 1984), or cooperation may lead to disintermediation and power shifts in markets (Kumar and Van Dissel, 1996;Inkpen and Beamish, 1997).…”

“…Moreover, our vertical supply chain study can be extended towards horizontal alliances ). An example of a horizontal alliance would be a 'co-opetitive' relationship aimed at joint procurement or co-development of products and services (Gnyawali and Park, 2011;Van Fenema and Loebbecke, 2014). …”

“…According to Huxham, organizations need 'the capacity and readiness … to collaborate' (Huxham, 1993). Collaborative capacity also refers to employees being collaboratively oriented without losing sight of organizational interests (Van Fenema and Loebbecke, 2014), and able to absorb external knowledge to foster an organization's capacity to learn from their partner (Lane and Lubatkin, 1998).…”