Putting the Firm Back Into Alliance

Wilma W. Suen

Chapter 7 in Non-Cooperation — The Dark Side of Strategic Alliances, 2005, pp 158-170 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract The formal study of alliances has struggled to catch up with developments in the practice of alliance management. Even though competition is almost solely between groups in some industries, we do not fully understand how alliances compete, or how to measure whether or not they are successful. In other areas, despite the fact that increasing numbers of partnerships involve multiple firms, much of the research focus remains on bilateral ties. But, because multiparty alliances have more complex relationships, we cannot simply extrapolate from the existing findings and apply it to the new setting. Management research has yet to come to grips with the fact that multiparty alliances have evolved to the point of creating institutions with permanent staff. The lessons of bureaucratic politics, from political science, suggest that there is a danger that bureaucracies will end up pursuing objectives which perpetuate the organization or lose sight of the fact that the firm’s first loyalty is to its shareholders, creating larger fissures between alliance- and firm-level interests. These types of developments have ramifications for intra-alliance dynamics, and may threaten the stability of some groups.

Keywords: Strategic Alliance; Dark Side; Natural Interdependence; Alliance Partner; Fuel Cell Vehicle (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

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:pal:palchp:978-0-230-59657-3_7

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.palgrave.com/9780230596573

DOI: 10.1057/9780230596573_7

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Palgrave Macmillan Books from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().