I examine how firms use alliances to respond to the alliance networks of their rivals, by either allying with their rivals’ partners or by building countervailing alliances. Evidence from the global airline industry (1994–98) suggests that these strategic responses depend on alliance cospecialization. Cospecialized alliances by rivals may involve exclusivity, precluding alliances with the rival...

The formation of an alliance in conflict situations is known to suffer from a collective action problem and from the potential of internal conflict. We show that budget constraints of an intermediate size can overcome this strong disadvantage and explain the formation of alliances.

This paper introduces a social network perspective to the study of strategic alliances. It extends prior research, which has primarily considered alliances as dyadic exchanges and paid less attention to the fact that key precursors, processes, and outcomes associated with alliances can be defined and shaped in important ways by the social networks within which most firms are embedded. It identi...

In many emergent markets, cross-industry alliances are necessary to develop and market new products and services. The resource-based view suggests that firms form alliances to access valuable, rare, non-imitable and non-substitutable resources, and that such access determines the level of profits. Hence, firms confronted with the choice between partners with strong versus partners with weak res...

The literature on strategic alliances is vast. Most authors are pro-alliances and the casual reader may thereby be lulled into a false sense of security concerning the advantages of strategic alliances. There are several possible advantages of strategic alliances however by joining an alliance several opportunities are also forsaken. The opposite strategic option, a "go it alone strategy" gener...

F collaborate to develop and deliver new products. These collaborations vary in terms of the similarity of the competencies that partnering firms bring to the alliance. In same-function alliances, partnering firms have similar competencies, whereas in cross-function alliances, partners have very different competencies. On examining managers’ view of these alliances, we find that, on average, sa...

This paper examines how university research alliances and other cooperative links with universities contribute to startup employment growth. We argue that “scientific absorptive capacity” at the startup is critical for reaping the benefits from university research alliances, but not necessarily for other university connections. We also estimate the aggregate employment contribution from startup...

The literature on strategic alliances is vast. Most authors are pro-alliances and the casual reader may thereby be lulled into a false sense of security concerning the advantages of strategic alliances. There are several possible advantages of strategic alliances however by joining an alliance several opportunities are also forsaken. The opposite strategic option, a "go it alone strategy" gener...

The resource-based view of the firm has not been systematically applied to strategic alliances. By examining the role of firm resources in strategic alliances, we attempt, in this paper, to put forward a general resource-based theory of strategic alliances, synthesizing the various findings in the literature on alliances from a resource-based view. The proposed theory covers four major aspects ...