(The) role of dynamic partnership capability in strategic alliance cycle

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Nowadays, in order to cope with market pressures and enhance the competitiveness of enterprises, building strategic alliance with appropriate firms to convert the competition from firm level to alliance level is recognized and accepted as an effective means by both academic research and practitioners. However,it’s noteworthy that even the rate of alliance formation has increased, more than 50% of the strategic alliance fail eventually.
Researchers have found thatthree main issues can lead to the failure of strategic alliance: instability, poor performance and premature termination, each of which can effectively influence the success of strategic alliance in different phases.Premature termination and instability mainly affect the building and maintenance phases of strategic alliance and can cause focal firms fail to build a sustainable relationship with their alliance partners as well as poor performance mainly affect the utilization phase of strategic alliance and can cause focal firms fail to achieve the common goals of strategic alliance with their partners. Hence, from the practitioner perspective, investigating the initial building, maintenance and potential outcomes of strategic alliance simultaneously can provide a more comprehensive understanding for practitioners to ensure the successful deployment of strategic alliance.
Furthermore, through the review of the existing research on strategic alliance, several potential limitations in the existing research are worth attention: (1) Even the combination of multiple existing theories are considered as an appropriate approach to investigate the formation of strategic alliance, few of the existing researchpays attention to uncover the internal relationships between these theories; (2) Most of the existing research investigate the formation of strategic alliance based on a static point of view instead of a dynamic point of view; (3) Eventhe dynamic capability view is wildly adopted to explain the performance ofstrategic alliance, however a high-level aggregate capabilityis still missing in this domain.Suggesting a fresh conceptual framework toovercomethese limitations in this study shows the worthwhile probability to illuminate the way for the further studies in this domain.
Accordingly, we suggest an appropriate approach to fully demonstrate the formation and utilization of strategic alliance in this study through the combination of strategic alliance cycle framework andresource-capability-performance framework.Based onstrategic alliance cycle framework, several wildly adopted theories (e.g., resource-based view, congruence theory, resource dependence theory, and relational capital view) in this domain are organized into different phases of building strategic alliance and the potential relationships are also empirically verified in this study. Based onresource-capability-performance framework, we demonstrate the phase of utilizing strategic allianceto achieve focal firms’ actual performance; a form of aggregate capability in the context of strategic alliance - dynamic partnership capability is proposed and further verified in this study.
Based on the data analysis on 174 responses received from Chinese high-tech industry, the main findings in this study are arranged as follows: (1) compared with the casual combination of various theories, paying attention to the different phases of forming strategic alliance seems like a more suitable approach to gain a deeper insight in the context of strategic alliance. Accordingly,organization-level compatibility should occupy a higher priority than resource complementarity since resource complementarity reflects the scale of potential profits however organization-level compatibility reflects the probability to actually achieve the potential; (2) according to the results of second order factor analysis and PLS-SEM, the proposed external abilities can fulfill the duty to constitute the high-level construct – dynamic partnership capability in the context of strategic alliance.Moreover, even the relational capital embedded in a specific strategic alliance can directly enhance the alliance partner’s performance, to achieve benefit maximization through strategic alliance still highly rely on the development of dynamic partnership capability.
Keywords: Complementarity, Compatibility, Interdependence, Relational Capital, Dynamic Partnership Capability (information exchange, joint sense making, relationship-specific memory, joint action), Alliance-Based Performance, Strategic Alliance.

목차 (Table of Contents)

• 1. Introduction = 1
• 1.1 Research Background = 1
• 1.2 Research Questions and Research Method = 7
• 1.3 Research Structure = 9
• 2. Literature Review = 10
• 2.1 Extant Theories = 10
• 2.1.1 Resource Based View = 10
• 2.1.2 Congruence Theory = 12
• 2.1.3 Resource Dependence Theory = 14
• 2.1.4 Relational Capital View = 16
• 2.2 Strategic Alliance Cycle Framework = 18
• 2.2.1 Alliance Formation and Partner Selection Phase = 18
• 2.2.2 Alliance Governance and Design Phase = 20
• 2.2.3 Post-Formation Alliance Management Phase = 21
• 2.3 Dynamic Capability View = 24
• 2.3.1 Concept of Dynamic Capability = 24
• 2.3.2 Dimensions of Dynamic Capability = 25
• 2.4 Dynamic Partnership Capability = 29
• 2.4.1 Definition of DynamicPartnership Capability = 29
• 2.4.2 Measurement of Dynamic Partnership Capability = 29
• 2.5 Resource-Capability-Performance Framework = 33
• 3. Research Model andHypotheses = 36
• 3.1 Research Model = 36
• 3.2 ResearchHypotheses = 37
• 3.2.1 Complementarity, Interdependence and Relational Capital = 37
• 3.2.2 Compatibility, Interdependence and Relational Capital = 39
• 3.2.3 Interdependence and Relational Capital = 41
• 3.2.4 Relational Capital, Dynamic Partnership Capability and Alliance-Based Performance = 42
• 3.2.5 Dynamic Capability and Alliance-Based Performance = 45
• 4. Research Design = 47
• 4.1 Sampling = 47
• 4.2 Instrument and Measurement = 49
• 4.2.1 Complementarity = 49
• 4.2.2 Compatibility = 51
• 4.2.3 Interdependence = 51
• 4.2.4 RelationalCapital = 53
• 4.2.5 Dynamic Partnership Capability = 55
• 4.2.6 Alliance-Based Performance = 57
• 4.2.7 Control Variables = 57
• 5. Research Methodology = 60
• 5.1 Sample Description = 60
• 5.2 Common Method Variance = 62
• 5.3 Response Rate and Non-Response Bias = 64
• 5.4 Second Order Factor Analysis = 68
• 5.5 Reliability and Validity Analysis = 70
• 5.6 Hypotheses Test = 73
• 5.7 Mediation Effect Test = 77
• 5.7.1 Mediation Effect of Interdependence = 77
• 5.7.2 Mediation Effect of Dynamic Partnership Capability = 80
• 5.8 Model Fit, Predictive Accuracy and Predictive Relevance = 88
• 5.9 Implications = 90
• 5.9.1 Implications for Academic Researchers = 90
• 5.9.2 Implications for Practitioners = 93
• 6. Conclusions = 97
• 6.1 Summary = 97
• 6.2 Limitations and Suggestions for Future Research = 98
• References = 100
• Appendix = 119
• A List of Sub-Sectors in Chinese High-Tech Industry = 119
• Questionnaire in Chinese = 120
• Questionnaire in English =128
• Abstract = 136