Three Essays on the Formation, Implementation, and Performance of Inter-organizational Relationships: Focused on Technology and Learning Alliances

Abstract

As technologies and markets change at an accelerated speed and firms face complicated changes in competition environments, firms have formed various types of alliances to combine complementary resources and capabilities and to create synergy effects. These alliances are generally known to help firms grow and make good records. However, they sometimes cause risks and failures by inviting side effects such as the unintended disclosure of core competency and the subsequent loss of competitive advantage. It is because alliances have both collaborative and competitive features at the same time in essence and such contradictory features take various forms in real-world partnerships. Therefore, it is very important for firms to strategically deal with each step of alliances from formation to termination in order to produce expected performance through alliances. This study starts from this point and discusses how firms form and manage alliances strategically by successfully coping with the challenges that they face during the formation and implementation of alliances in three independent researches. They differ in research subjects and alliance characteristics, but are common in the aspect of identifying challenges faced by firms according to alliance characteristics and seeking ways to reap higher alliance performance by effectively managing those challenges to fit their internal condition and external environment. The first research focuses on knowledge asymmetry between partners, rarely discussed in previous researches, as an important factor to impact on the learning performances of international joint ventures(IJVs). Knowledge asymmetry exists in the partner relationships of learning alliances in nature and is a vital factor for the success of knowledge transfer between partners. In this regard, the concept of knowledge asymmetry is introduced and its types are firstly classified into 'foundational knowledge asymmetry', 'specific knowledge asymmetry', and 'knowledge processing system asymmetry' according to the characteristics of the core knowledge demanded in each implementation stage of learning alliances. The research also examines the impact of each type of knowledge asymmetry on the learning performances of IJVs. The results show that the learning performances of IJVs are enhanced when the foundational asymmetry between partners is low because of a firm's having good understanding of the knowledge involved, and when the specific knowledge asymmetry is high due to the difference between target knowledge and a firm's holding knowledge. However, the positive influence of specific knowledge asymmetry on performance is expected only when the technological capability gap between partners is not big. It is because a bigger gap may rather trigger opportunistic behaviors from one side. The second research discusses how the implementation of upstream and downstream alliances simultaneously affects business performances in small technology-based firms with insufficient resources and capabilities. For this purpose, each sub-classification of upstream and downstream alliances into unilateral and bilateral alliances is tried for the first time according to the relational characteristics between partners, and four different types of vertical alliance portfolios are suggested. This research also examines that the impacts of vertical alliances on business performance vary with the types of portfolios. The results show that the portfolio focused on unilateral alliances for both upstream and downstream domains may give young firms the better performances. However, as firms are older, it is more effective to form the closer relationships by conducting bilateral alliances in upstream or downstream domain. Specifically, bilateral alliances in upstream domain can be a better way for technology-focused firms, whereas commercialization-oriented firms are recommended to conduct bilateral alliances in downstream domain. Conducting bilateral alliance for both upstream and downstream domains simultaneously dose not contribute to performance because of high relational risks except in the case of firms which have alliance experiences with the same partners for both upstream and downstream domains. The last research deals with the R&D alliances between universities and firms that are major channels for firms to acquire and utilize outside knowledge. These R&D alliances are characterized by high relational risks generally coming from different organizational missions and cultures, and by high technological risks usually arising from the development of early-stage technology. In this regard, the coordination system and control system to effectively manage R&D alliances under both types of risks are discussed. The results show that the positive impact of coordination system on performance becomes higher when both risks are high, while control system works better when they are low. The combination of coordination and control system is also recommended under the intermediate level of both risks. Conclusively, this study contributes to specifying and elaborating discussions related to IJVs in the theoretic aspect because it discusses effective partner relationships from a knowledge perspective by firstly introducing and classifying the concept of knowledge asymmetry. It also tries to segment vertical alliances, dealt with at an integrated level in previous researches, into four types of portfolios for the first time and examines the different influence of each portfolio on performance, which has significance for further researches on vertical alliances. This study also gives strategic tips to managers by providing the basis for firms to select optimum alliance methods that fit the situations in actual business activities.