Collaborative business models: Aligning and operationalizing alliances

It is not unusual for companies to generate substantial revenue through alliances. However, alliance failure rates are high, leaving much revenue at risk and value unrealized. The big challenge facing managers is to align company interests with alliance interests. Such alignment can only be achieved when executives pay considerable attention to building the right collaborative business model. In this article, we synthesize the insights of the existing literature to arrive at three collaborative business models—sharing, specialization, and allocation—that managers can use to address the specific requirements of their alliances. Because the literature provides limited insight regarding how to operationalize these models, we highlight what managers need to focus on when operationalizing each of these models. We find that the choice for an overall business model is relatively straightforward in most cases but that operationalization of business models requires more complex combinations of management techniques. Finally, we show how the three collaborative business models can be combined to build hybrid models.     

Strategic alliances by financial services firms

We examine a sample of strategic alliances made by financial services firms during 1986 to 2003. The market reacts positively to the announcements of alliances and seems to incorporate the information about the value of alliances at the time of alliance announcements. We find no evidence of abnormal stock performance after announcements. Our results also suggest that strategic alliances usually are used as a final form of cooperation rather than as a first step towards closer cooperation between firms. For instance, only about 5% of alliances are followed with joint ventures or mergers of partner firms. Nevertheless, strategic alliance firms are more likely to form joint ventures or merge than randomly selected and matched firms. Furthermore, the market reacts more favorably to the alliance announcements by firms that are subsequently acquired by the alliance partners.     

An Empirical Investigation of Relational Conflicts in Co-Marketing Alliances

Purpose: The focus of the present research is to ascertain reasons for potential conflict between co-marketing alliance partners and means of managing the relationship more effectively. Specifically, the investigation seeks to identify antecedents of conflict in co-marketing alliances from a strategic perspective.

Methodology/Approach: To test the study hypotheses, the authors surveyed 178 executives in the credit card industry in South Korea. The Korean market was used because of the extreme popularity of credit card usage in that country.

Findings: The empirical findings provide some support for the idea that strategic management of conflict should be of importance to co-marketing alliance partners.

Originality/Value/Contribution: As industries experience declines in profitability, co-marketing alliances have become a popular means for firms in efforts to increase sales and profitability in maturing industries. Because these alliances are interdependent and the goals or interests of both partners can differ, conflict is likely to be experienced between the alliance members. Notwithstanding this likelihood, there are still very few studies that provide comprehensive examination regarding which cognitive factors are associated with conflict in co-marketing alliances. This investigation adds to that growing body of knowledge.     

试析供应链战略联盟成功的关键因素

供应链战略联盟融合了供应链与战略联盟两种组织形式的优点,强调供应链上的战略合作,通过企业间的合作实现联盟利益最大化;通过企业间的合作,使收益在各成员间进行合理分配。使成员企业利益都得以提高,适应不断变化的现代市场环境。本文分析了影响供应链战略联盟成功的关键因素,并提出了构建我国企业供应链战略联盟的建议。     

Alliance type,alliance experience and alliance management capability in high-technology ventures

We investigate a high-technology venture's alliance management capability. Thus, we develop a model that links differential demands of alliance type and the benefits of alliance experience to an observable outcome from a firm's alliance management capability. We test our model on a sample of 2226 R&D alliances entered into by 325 global biotechnology firms. We find that alliance type and alliance experience moderate the relationship between a high-technology venture's R&D alliances and its new product development. These results provide empirical evidence for the existence of an alliance management capability and its heterogeneous distribution across firms.     

Success through commitment and trust: the soft side of strategic alliance management

This article argues that the success of international strategic alliances requires attention not only to the hard side of alliance management (e.g., financial issues and other operational issues) but, also, to the soft side. The soft side refers to the development and management of relationship capital in the alliance. Relationship capital consists of the socio-psychological aspects of the alliance that are positive and beneficial to the alliance. Two important areas of relationship capital are mutual trust and commitment. Based on our findings from two major studies of Japanese strategic alliances, we develop a dynamic model of trust and commitment based on mutual adjustments of alliance partners. We also show how the dynamics of trust and commitment affect the performance of international strategic alliances with the Japanese. The article concludes with a discussion of the managerial implications of our findings and the dynamic model.     

Cross-sector Alliances for Corporate Social Responsibility Partner Heterogeneity Moderates Environmental Strategy Outcomes

This article provides a new mechanism in understanding how partner heterogeneity moderates an alliance??s ability to advance corporate social responsibility goals. I identified the antecedents for firms to select a more diverse set of partners and explored whether more diverse alliances (especially cross-sector alliances) may facilitate partners to achieve more proactive environmental outcomes. I employ 146 environmental alliances formed in the U.S. between 1990 and 2009 to test the assertions. Results suggest that firms with innovative orientation and alliance experiences tend to choose a more diverse set of partners (especially cross-sector partners); and such partner heterogeneity in turn moderates an alliance??s environmental outcomes??compared to inter-firm alliances, cross-sector alliances are more likely to facilitate partners to pursue more proactive environmental strategies.     

Taking the rough with the smooth: A qualitative inquiry into social and cultural practices of knowledge-sharing work in international consultancy alliances

Knowledge sharing in inter-organizational alliances has been predominantly studied by investigating causal influencing factors in tightly-coupled alliances. In contrast, we empirically study how individuals accomplish knowledge sharing activities in the context of various social and cultural differences within a loosely-coupled international business-consultancy alliance. Through an in-depth qualitative case-study approach, we find that the local knowledge-seeking and -accessing partners socially and culturally deal with various influencing factors, through two broad sets of ‘knowledge-sharing work’. This includes harmonization development work, and disharmony mitigation work, that are both supported through an accompanying mode of work: auto-learning. These forms of work at the micro (individual and interactional) level, are enabled through modes of communicative interaction, not just strategic action. Further, this work mediates between the influencing factors and the knowledge sharing of the alliances in an iterative and recursive manner. Our findings thus contribute to showing how knowledge sharing is enacted in inter-organizational alliances, by highlighting the significance and dynamics of the micro-level social and cultural practices of knowledge-sharing work.     

Multilateral alliances and innovation output: The importance of equity and technological scope

The formation of R&D alliances has become an increasingly popular way to achieve improved innovation outcomes. However, R&D alliances face high failure rates due to the dual nature, cooperation and competition, of what can be a very challenging inter-firm relationship, a problem that is compounded when an alliance involves more than two partners. As such, it is important to understand the mechanisms that encourage cooperation in multilateral alliances to help firms achieve desired innovation outcomes. In this study, we hypothesize two such mechanisms: equity governance structure and multi-technology scope. We test our hypotheses using panel data from the pharmaceutical industry spanning 15 years. Our results support the idea that equity governance and having a multiple technology scope are positively related to innovation outcomes in multilateral alliances.     

The market orientation-performance link: the role of service reliability

International alliances in retailing are a fairly new phenomenon. A range of relationships is being formed between retailers in order to take advantage of new opportunities and to counter the threats created by the internationalisation of retailing. This paper proposes a taxonomy of the range of alliances being formed between and among retailers, giving evidence from the UK retail sector to support the taxonomy. A comprehensive identification of UK retailer presence in international alliances is presented, along with a discussion on the potential advantages that accrue from membership of an alliance. We conclude by highlighting further issues for discussion.     

供应链成员企业投资RFID技术的激励机制：共享收入与谈判批发价的比较

许多已有研究发现供应链成员投资RFID技术的动机是一致的，它们假定投资前后的批发价能以相同方式制定。然而，供应链成员在投资前可能已达成固定的批发价。考虑包含一个制造商(她)和一个零售商(他)的供应链系统，成员可采用如分享销售收入(RS)、重新谈判批发价格(WR)、二者并用(B)的激励机制。结果发现在WR和B下，当制造商的谈判权力中等且标签成本较小时，投资RFID能实现双赢，但两家企业的投资动机不总是完全一致；当初始批发价足够高时，若制造商的谈判权力足够强，制造商和零售商对WR的偏好都高于N，对B的偏好都高于RS；当初始批发价较低时，若制造商的谈判权力中等，双方对RS的偏好都高于WR。若制造商的谈判权力较强，供应链系统在B下的收益比WR下的高；若制造商的谈判权力中等或较弱，供应链系统在B或WR下的收益都比N和RS下的高。     

Multilateral R&D alliances by new ventures

We examine the antecedents and outcomes of new ventures' formation of multilateral R&D alliances. Our results show an inverted U-shaped relationship between market uncertainty and a new venture's likelihood of forming multilateral R&D alliances. Top management team's social capital and ventures' technological capabilities are critical for new ventures to identify and capture alliance opportunities. Moreover, our analysis reveals value creation effects of multilateral R&D alliances for new ventures despite the challenges and difficulties associated. We further show that the value creation effect is a function of the type of exchange relationship (i.e., net- vs. chain-based) in the multilateral R&D alliance and that governance structure moderates this relationship.     

基于博弈理论的大宗商品定价权联盟构建

目前,我国已经成为国际上许多大宗商品的最大买家。但全球大宗商品的定价权并未因我国成为最大买家而移至我国。在商品与服务的价格方面,我国还没有与自身地位相匹配的话语权。这是因为,我国铁矿石行业间缺乏有效的联盟,存在行业集中度低、竞争无序等问题,结果导致定价权与国内企业离得越来越远。大宗商品联盟缺失是导致我国定价权缺失的重要原因。基于博弈理论构建大宗商品的定价权联盟,是打破目前状况的一条根本途径。我国企业应借鉴国外企业的经验和路径,积极构建产业链联盟、企业联盟、金融联盟、采购联盟和营销联盟,以谋求我国企业在大宗商品上的国际定价权。     

Organizational capital,production factor resources,and relative firm size in strategic equity alliances

Access to complementary resources through strategic equity alliance networks is an important activity for both smaller and larger firms. In the literature, there is an intensive debate on the impact of alliance resources for smaller firms. We submit that the effect of alliance resources on the smaller firm financial performance depends on the attributes of these resources. Specifically, we argue that the attributes of partner organizational capital are negatively related and the attributes of partner production factor resources are positively related to the smaller firm financial performance. We test our theoretical framework by applying a longitudinal analysis to a dataset of 1730 firm-year observations of strategic equity alliances in the software industry in 25 countries over an 11-year period. We find support for our hypotheses, highlighting the critical importance of resource attributes for smaller firms in strategic equity alliance networks.     

Financial slack and venture managers' decisions to seek a new alliance

We examine two distinct perspectives to analyze the role of financial slack in the decisions of technology venture managers to seek strategic alliances. According to the capabilities perspective, financial slack provides managers with the ability to maximize the benefits from acquiring missing capabilities through alliance formation, whereas according to the resource dependence perspective, financial slack buffers the managers' motivations to seek alliances as a reaction to external environmental scarcity. Drawing on an experimental design and data on 1632 decisions nested within 51 managers, we find support for a combined perspective demonstrating that managerial discretion in the form of financial slack moderates how internal capabilities and context encourage managers to seek alliances. We discuss implications of our work for the alliance literature.     

Revenue enhancement,part 1: a straightforward approach for making more money

Revenue enhancement—comprising strategies for increasing the amount of money a business makes—requires that a business solve a guest's problems in such a way that the guest pays to have those needs satisfied and is pleased at the outcome. Involving creative approaches to serving guests, revenue enhancement implies a management commitment to seek guests who are willing and able to pay for solutions to their problems. Revenue enhancement can be as simple as letting guests know what services are available or asking them about their needs so that one can match up desired services to those offered by a hotel or restaurant, or it can be as complicated as applying computer-based yield-management algorithms. In addition to encouraging guests to spend their money, managers committed to revenue enhancement must set up incentives that allow their employees to share in the additional profits brought about by the extra services that the employees offer. Developing new services, repackaging existing services, and shifting peak demand to off-peak times are all tactics that can enhance revenue. This is the first in a series discussing specifically how hotels and restaurants can apply revenue-enhancing strategies.     

A typology of brand alliances and consumer awareness of brand alliance integration

Brand alliances, which involve intentionally presenting two or more brands together, appear in many different forms. For example, Subway stores placed within Wal-Mart, Airbus A380 airplanes with Rolls-Royce Trent engines, and Nike + iPod co-developed personal trainers are among the more well-known manifestations of this strategy. Our study contributes to the literature on brand alliances by conceptualizing and measuring a typology of brand alliance types based on their degree of integration. We also empirically test and find that consumers are sensitive to varying degrees of brand alliance integration. We then link these findings to the managerial decision of how and with whom a brand should form an alliance. We use extensive examples, conversations with managers, and survey-based experiments to show that brand alliance integration is relevant and impactful to both managers and consumers.     

Functional and contextual dimensions of INVs’ alliance partner selection

Prior research on the selection of international alliance partners calls for investigation of the potential specificity of selection criteria for evaluating partners for alliances with different objectives or functions. The present study responds to this need and contributes to the development of the field of international entrepreneurship by examining the relation between the alliance function and the criteria chosen. We studied three alliance functions: R&D, production, and marketing. Second, for each alliance function, we analyzed the criteria selected within two contexts: developing countries and those that consider emerging markets in their partner choice set. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 25 executives from international new ventures (INVs) in two major North American biotechnology clusters, representing 239 alliances; 65.7 % of these were signed with international partners. Results indicate that, aside from compatibility/complementarity of resources (R&D and production alliances), all criteria used within a single function are unique to that function. Furthermore, these criteria differ somewhat when the potential partners considered by a firm include those from both emerging and developed markets, compared with firms that limit potential partners to those in developed market contexts. Finally, the study reveals that respondent firms integrate country, industry, and market attractiveness factors with partner selection criteria for marketing alliances. This suggests that, for many firms, market choice and partner selection are not successive steps. The study’s originality lies in its focus on the relationship between alliance function and partner selection criteria used by INVs as well as within different contexts.     

The financing of alliance entrepreneurship

It is popular nowadays for entrepreneurial firms to advance their entrepreneurship outside their boundaries through alliances. This paper studies how the financing of entrepreneurship changes in strategic alliances. We model a financially constrained entrepreneur and a deep-pocket incumbent developing an innovative product through a strategic alliance, which generates externalities on the incumbent. We find that i) in contrast to traditional theories, the entrepreneur's financial constraint can be tightened by an increase in his endowment; ii) an outside investor is introduced as a third party to deal with the free-riding agency problem; and iii) the externalities have a significant effect on the design of financial claims in the alliance contract, and the incentive-compatible financial instruments are consistent with empirical observations.