Strategic alliance development : a study on alliances between competing firms

The objective of this study was to reveal the development of lSAs (International Strategic Alliances) and the important factors for every phase of an alliance relationship. Since there are a great number of variables that can be assessed throughout the whole process of an alliance life, we decided to focus this research on the operational phase of alliances. This choice was based on the assumption that during the operational phase, firms normally face difficulties in their relationship. In this phase, people experience working together on a daily basis with partners that probably have a totally different culture, organization, behavior, and so on. They need to cope with conflicts that often appear during their partnership, the changing commitment to the alliance, the exchange process with the partners and also the changing environment and strategy. The research literature indicates four important variables during this phase, namely partner contribution, control, conflict and communication. We further investigated these four variables and their impact on the process development of alliances. This research focused on strategic alliances between rival firms, which are known as horizontal alliances. This type of partnership can be divided in three categories: complementary, shared-supply and quasi-concentration alliances. The present study tried to answer the following research question: How does a strategic alliance develop, what are the stages it goes through and what are the factors that influence the successful functioning of an alliance? This research question was divided into the following sub-questions: What resources do partners contribute? How is control exercised in this relationship? What is the influence of partner contribution and control on conflict? What is the role of communication in the alliance partnership?