Strategic alliances - A marriage of convenience or a matter of trust?

This paper examines how members of a strategic alliance (referred to as the Alliance) develop knowledge through networking relationships that may or may not contribute to competitive advantage. A 1994 survey of Alliance general managers revealed that the reasons they gave for joining were related to maintaining and improving competitiveness through sharing management know-how, training costs and programs, engaging in joint tendering and increasing market share (Fulop and Kelly, 1995). Ten years later, in 2004 and again in 2008, the authors revisited the Alliance in order to discover whether some of these objectives had been achieved, the forms of learning that may have occurred among partners, and the role that trust has played in the knowledge sharing processes

Social inclusion of migrant workers in a pandemic: employing consumer vulnerability lens to internal Indian migrant experience

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to expand the theoretical understanding of social inclusion of vulnerable populations. Employing cross disciplinary literature from marketing and social policy, this paper examines the factors shaping internal migrant workers experience of inclusion and vulnerability in the context of COVID-19 pandemic. Design/methodology/approach: The authors conducted a review of social inclusion and consumer vulnerability literature to develop a new and innovative conceptual framework which operationalises social inclusion. This framework was then examined using an illustrative case study of internal migrant worker crisis in India. Data for the case were collected from various national and international media, government and non-government reports published in English on the pandemic related migrant crisis in India. Findings: Access and control over food was fraught with barriers for migrant workers. As the lockdown progressed, access to and control over work opportunities was precarious. Furthermore, the resource-control constraints faced by migrant workers in terms of food, work and transport had a direct impact on their experience of social inclusion. Lastly, the stranded migrant workers found themselves unable to fully participate in economic activities. Originality/value: To the authors' knowledge this is the first paper that integrates consumer vulnerability concept, originating in marketing scholarship into the social inclusion framework. This allowed for anchoring the "aspirational goals" of social inclusion into the concrete context of consumers and marketplaces

Strategic flexibility and organisational performance: The mediating effects of total market orientation

Firm capabilities are argued to be the source of greatest value and superior organisational performance. A capability that is increasingly being examined in the marketing literature is that of strategic flexibility. However, extant literature is limited in examining the relationship between strategic flexibility, performance and other capabilities. Resource Based View is used as a foundation to argue that strategic flexibility effects performance directly and indirectly through total market orientation. The findings partially support the model, as it provides evidence only for the indirect effects. Consequently, the value of strategic flexibility is that it drives total market orientation, which then leads to superior organisational performance

Strategic alliances and knowledge sharing: synergies or silos?

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of a relationship marketing orientation within a strategic alliance (referred to as the Alliance) to determine whether those firms have achieved synergy in knowledge sharing or whether they operate as knowledge silos. Design/methodology/approach – To achieve this aim the paper takes a strategic perspective and proposes a model based on the resource-based view of the firm (RBV) in order to discover whether member firms can move Alliance relationships towards knowledge sharing experienced within long-term and continuing relationships. Findings – The results of this study reveal that intangible assets, such as relationships and knowledge, should be managed by the Alliance with the same care as would be undertaken with tangible assets. Further, the development of a relationship market orientation (RMO) by the Alliance appears to be crucial. Research limitations/implications – A key limitation of this paper could be considered the sample size (although the response rate was high) and geographical location. Practical implications – Implications from the study were that, although information and knowledge were being shared, one area of improvement would be in relation to the depth of knowledge sharing that tended to occur on a superficial basis. Originality/value – The findings are original in terms of knowledge sharing across organizational boundaries. There is currently very little research available that focuses on the influence of an RMO on knowledge sharing within network groups