Research On The Stability Of The Technology Alliances Based On The System Dynamics

Firms gradually realize that they can't keep the sustaining market competitive power without cooperating with other firms, because they can't gain some specific resources from the open market. So they begin to find partners who have the technological advantages in the global market, and try to create a new form for the inter-firm cooperation, that's'cooperation with competition'. They hope this kind of cooperation can bring them'win-win' and do their best to improve the method they use. In this situation, a new organization named 'technology alliance' appears. It can restrict its members'behavior through the contracts or other paper things to make sure that the circumstance the members cooperate in is good and stable enough for the long-time development. However, through researchers'study, we find the stability of technology alliances is so bad that most of the alliances disintegrate within 4 years, and the rate is so high, up to more than 80 percentages. Obviously, the stability of technology alliance has become a new and valuable issue pending to be solved.This paper firstly analyzes the dynamic process of the technology alliances'evolution, explains the elements which affect the stability of the technology alliances, and then provides some suggestive measures for the maintenance of the stability.In the study, we combine the qualitative and the quantitative thoughts, use the system dynamics as the analyzing method. After mastering the dynamic process of the technology alliances'operation, this study classify the elements which affect the alliances'stability by modules, and make the casual flow model within each module to explain the path through which the elements affect the stability. Based on the above, all the casual flow models could be integrated into a comprehensive system flow model which can simulate the future states of the whole system. Once the system flow model is set quantitative, it can be used as a virtual 'policy lab'which can predict the evolution tendency of the technology alliances.After the successful construction of the system flow model, this study makes the effectiveness test for the model. Through the simulation, we find that all the elements in each module are suitable for the objective system, so the new-built theoretical model passes the test and can be used in the practical way. And then, this study change one or some elements' initial state in the system flow model to discover the change between the before and after. As a result, we realize that the trust can improve only the alliances'stability, but not the tendency of the alliances. Meanwhile, we can change both the level and the tendency of the alliances' stability by changing a combination of external elements. Finally, based on all the above, this study provides some suggestions for the achievement and the maintenance of technology alliances'stability, and gives the conclusion for the whole paper.