Resource Balancing Through Alliance Portfolios And Firm Performance:the Moderating Role Of Alliance Portfolio Management Capability

Pursuing two opposing objectives,such as exploration versus exploitation,market extension versus efficiency improvement,can potentially enhance firms'competitiveness and performance.At the same time,large amount of resources needed for attaining dual strategic objectives.It's impossible for firms to rely only on their own resources.Partner resources can be an important alternative to internal firm resources for attain dual and seemingly incompatible strategic objectives.We extend arguments about managing conflicting objectives typically made at the firm level to the level of a firm's alliance portfolio.Alliance portfolios have become a valuable strategic tool for firms to attaining resources.It is alliance portfolio management capability that effected whether firms can achieve expected objectives from alliance portfolios.Different dimensions of alliance portfolio management capability make different impact on performance.We focus on resource level to examine the relationship between resource balance and performance when moderated by the different dimensions of alliance portfolio management capability.Based on data from 165 hotels,we find that firms may achieve better performance from resource balance in alliance portfolios when they possess higher alliance portfolio coordination capability and interorganizational learning capability but lower alliance transformation capability.