WORKING PAPER SERIES ON RESEARCH IN RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT Alliance Capabilities and Relational Capital: An Integrated Perspective

Over the past decades alliance activity among companies has reached unsurpassed levels. In spite of this strong increase in alliance activity, success rates of alliances have been surprisingly low. In this paper we study two main lines of research that aim to explain alliance performance; i.e. research that has stresses the role of trust and personal interaction in inter-organizational relationships and research that points at the role of alliance competence as a main driver of alliance success. More in particular, we focus on the interplay between a firm’s alliance capability and its relational capital. It is argued that relational capital and alliance capability are important constructs of alliance success. By studying the interrelations between these construct and their effect on alliance performance we are able to provide some important insights in how firms can manage their interorganizational relationships more effectively.