A resource-based view of strategic alliances: Organizational capabilities, governance, and performance

This dissertation integrates the transaction cost and the resource-based literature to investigate strategic alliances or the relatively enduring inter-firm cooperatives that utilize resources and/or governance structures from autonomous organizations, for the joint accomplishment of individual goals of sponsoring firms. The dissertation explores strategic alliance motivation, governance, organizational benefits, and industry effects that obtain from this behavior. Proposing that the need for resources or resource utilization that leads to sustainable competitive advantage drives firms to adopt strategic alliances that they govern efficiently through contractual agreements or equity holdings, five hypotheses that address three related questions are evaluated: (1) What resource characteristics do firms exhibit that engage in strategic alliances? (2) What governance structures align partner firm resources to achieve objectives? and (3) How do alliances impact partner firms and their industry?; Since relatively complete contracts can be drawn for alliances based on tangible resources (although even incomplete contracts will work for general assets in competitive factor markets), tangible non-specific resources are predicted to involve lower transaction costs when governed through contractual agreements than through equity joint ventures. Conversely, complete contracts cannot be drawn for alliances based on intangible resources such as technological capabilities that may be subject to opportunism hence the prediction that alliances based on intangible resources will involve lower transaction costs when governed through equity joint ventures. Positive impacts of alliances on performance are predicted to be contingent upon appropriately matching resource characteristics with governance structures that involve lower transaction costs and can potentially create, capture and sustain rents.; Based on the U.S. steel industry data, the results are largely consistent with the general proposition. The results associate some firm resources with alliancing behavior and industry alliancing behavior with increased competitiveness in terms of increased profitability and labor productivity even as prices fall. The pattern of strategic alliances in the industry that emerges is consistent with the efficiency hypothesis that alliances lead to diffusion of best practices although the market power interpretation is not negated. These findings inform the best practice transfer and are relevant to the anti-competition view of horizontal alliances and should inform the horizontal alliancing-competition debate.