Solving the ally-versus-acquire dilemma through the dual lenses of subjective and objective views

Chiung-Hui Tseng

Journal of Business Economics and Management, 2017, vol. 18, issue 3, 373-389

Abstract: Nowadays many firms seek hard-to-imitate assets via allying with or acquiring other firms that own desired resources. As such, how to choose between alliances and acquisitions becomes a critical decision, and one important determinant is interfirm factors. This study probes three crucial yet underexplored interfirm differences, and develops scales to capture managers’ perceptions of the differences that, based on managerial cognition literature, dictate the ally-versus-acquire choice. Further, we argue that managers adjust their judgement across varying objective conditions. Each perceived difference is thus paired with a moderator identified respectively from the resource-based view, competitive dynamics, and collaborative capability literature. Evidences on Taiwanese firms show that a larger resource-deployment difference enhances acquisition likelihood, while greater differences in marketing praxis and human resource management increase alliance formation. Moreover, the resource-deployment difference leads to alliances for relatively younger partners, and the difference in human resource management favors acquisitions when focal firms have more interfirm governance experience.

Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.3846/16111699.2017.1312512 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:jbemgt:v:18:y:2017:i:3:p:373-389

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/TBEM20

DOI: 10.3846/16111699.2017.1312512

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Business Economics and Management is currently edited by Izolda Joksiene, Romualdas Ginevicius and Ieva Meidute

More articles in Journal of Business Economics and Management from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().