Exploratory and exploitative alliances for new product innovations: The alignment of resource integration and governance structures

This dissertation is intended to extend our understanding of exploratory and exploitative alliances for new product innovations. I develop and empirically test theoretical models that reveal how firms choose contract terms for exploratory and exploitative alliances and how the alignments of contract terms affect innovation outcomes. In particular, I examine two types of contract terms, namely, those specifying how resources between partners are to be integrated (resource integration structure) and those specifying how the relationships are to be governed (alliance governance structure).;First, this dissertation reveals the role of a firm's alliance experience in coordinating the choice of contract terms in the presence of potential conflicts of interest between partners. The research results show that a firm's alliance experience allows the firm to accommodate its partner's preferred choice of contract terms for the collaboration. Second, this dissertation differentiates among the mechanisms through which the contract terms facilitate or hinder radical and incremental innovations resulting from exploratory and exploitative alliances. For exploratory alliances, the alignment of contact terms in a way that provides a compromise between the need for coordination and the need for search flexibility better facilitates radical innovations. In contrast, for exploitative alliances, the alignment of contract terms in a way that economizes the technological and managerial resources used to set up and maintain the collaborative relationships better facilitates incremental innovations. Third, this dissertation reveals the relationship between exploratory and exploitative alliances for successful product innovations. Specifically, this research shows that both positive and negative interactions can exist between exploratory and exploitative alliances in a firm's alliance portfolio, depending on the size of the firm. Finally, this dissertation provides important insights for managers in the development of their alliance portfolios for successful new product innovations.