The antecedents of response strategies in strategic alliances

Purpose : Strategic alliances involve uncertainty, interdependence, and vulnerability, which often create adverse situations. This paper seeks to understand how alliance managers respond to these adverse situations by examining the influence of four exchange variables on response strategies. Design/methodology/approach : A scenario-based experiment provides empirical support for a typology consisting of seven conceptually and empirically distinct response strategies: exit, opportunism, aggressive voice, creative voice, considerate voice, patience, and neglect. Findings : The results indicate that economic satisfaction, social satisfaction, alliance-specific investments, and the availability of attractive alternatives differentially and interactively affect response strategies. Research limitations/implications : The study offers two main contributions to alliance literature. First, the seven response strategies accurately represent reactions that alliance managers use to deal with adverse situations. Second, the study findings validate and extend previous alliance research by highlighting that a comprehensive response strategy typology is necessary to disentangle the effects of the four exchange conditions on response strategy use, which fosters theory development and managers’ ability to manage their alliances effectively. Originality/value : The study contributes to the process perspective on strategic alliances by highlighting the various response strategies that alliance managers use to deal with adverse situations and their antecedents

Dynamics in Inter-Firm Collaboration: The Impact of Alliance Capabilities on Performance

In this study we question the direct relationship between a firm’s alliance capability and alliance performance. We contend that this relationship is mediated through post-information factors such as alliance management and relational quality.Drawing from the Resource Based View a model is presented that explicates these indirect relationships. Partial least squares analysis was used to test three hypotheses, using a sample of Dutch alliance managers responsible for non‐equity alliances in agribusiness and the food industry. Our empirical findings affirm the hypothesized indirect relationships between a firm’s alliance capability and alliance performance

A Model of Response Strategies in Strategic Alliances :: A PLS Analysis of a Circumplex Structure

The few studies investigating partners’ response behavior in strategic alliances often fail to provide empirical support for a large proportion of the relationships they hypothesized. This discrepancy between theory and empirical findings could be attributed to a misconceptualization of response strategies as independent from each other. Indeed, response strategies could be better conceptualized as a circumplex structure rather than as discrete responses. Whereas the circumplex structure of response strategies has been empirically established, it has not yet been taken into account when detecting the effects of potential antecedents on response strategies. A model that accounts for the circumplex structure thus should exhibit superior explanatory power by reducing Type II error. PLS pathmodeling is particularly suited to substantiate the superiority of such a model, however PLS path modeling as implemented in extant software is not equipped to estimate circumplex structures. Therefore, the objective of the present study is twofold. First, we extend PLS path modeling so that it can handle circumplex structures. Second, building on a circumplex structure of response strategies, we develop and test a model of alliance partners’ response strategies and key antecedents. The results of a survey of alliance managers corroborate our expectations and demonstrate that non-significant antecedents become significant when accounting for the circumplex structure. This study thus advances PLS path modeling and contributes to a better understanding of managers’ complex decision-making processes in strategic alliances

Response Strategies in an International Strategic Alliance Experimental Context: cross-country differences

International strategic alliances have grown increasingly popular in recent decades, yet their failure rate is extremely high. Poor management of adverse situations contributes significantly to such high failure rates. Moreover, the international environments in which international strategic alliances operate exacerbate the adverse situations and make their management more critical. However, extant research does not specify how people from different national cultures respond to these adverse situations. In order to better understand cross-national differences, this study investigates future managers’ preferences for specific response strategies in an international strategic alliance experimental context. Using a scenario-based experiment with 1,379 business students in five countries—Japan, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Turkey, and the United Kingdom—the authors assess whether preferences for seven response strategies—exit, opportunism, aggressive voice, creative voice, considerate voice, patience, and neglect—vary across countries. The results indicate that national culture, both directly and interactively through relationship-level exchange variables that characterize the adversity of the situation, influences response strategy preference. This study advances literature on response strategies by explaining that when faced with the same adverse situation, future managers from different countries likely prefer different response strategies, depending on which response strategies they believe are most adequate in their cultural environment

Matching radiative transfer models and radiosonde data from the EPS/Metop Sodankylä campaign to IASI measurements

Radiances observed from IASI are compared to calculated ones. Calculated radiances are obtained using several radiative transfer models (OSS, LBLRTM v11.3 and v11.6) on best estimates of the atmospheric state vectors. The atmospheric state vectors are derived from cryogenic frost point hygrometer and humidity dry bias corrected RS92 measurements flown on sondes launched 1 h and 5 min before IASI overpass time. The temperature and humidity best estimate profiles are obtained by interpolating or extrapolating these measurements to IASI overpass time. The IASI observed and calculated radiances match to within one sigma IASI instrument noise in the spectral region where water vapour is a strong absorber (wavenumber, ν, in the range of 1500 ≤ ν ≤ 1570 and 1615 ≤ ν ≤ 1800 cm−1)

Responding to Adverse Situations within Exchange Relationships:: The Cross-Cultural Validity of a Circumplex Model

When faced with adverse situations in exchange relationships, the people involved are required to respond. Response strategies are reactions to such adverse situations and represent cognitive schemata organized in an integrated structure forming a mental map. Extant response strategy research implicitly assumes that the content and internal structure of response strategies is universal, but with few exceptions, it fails to assess cross-cultural validity, a necessary step to investigate potential cultural variations in response strategy preferences. This study has investigated the cross-cultural validity of a circumplex model in the Netherlands, Switzerland, Turkey, and Japan. The seven response strategies examined attained measurement equivalence, and six were organized in an equivalent circumplex structure in all four countries. The findings also revealed cross-cultural differences in people’s preference to use response strategies. This study therefore contributes to cross-cultural psychology literature by demonstrating that response strategy content and structure are nearly universal, whereas preferences for using response strategies vary across cultures

Use of synthetic RGB images in train

Ponencia presentada en: 2010 EUMETSAT Meteorological Satellite Conference celebrada del 20-24 de septiembre de 2010 en Córdoba.This paper compares actual and synthetic (calculated) airmass RGB composites, before and after applying different corrections: (a) synthetic airmass RGB calculated with the satellite zenith angle corresponding to the pixel, versus others with fixed zenith angles (0º, 15º, 30º, 45º, 60º and 75º), to observe the blue shift close to the disk boundary due to a longer atmospheric path for the signal in oblique views, (b) Synthetic airmass RGB in areas of sinking tropopause with ozone intrusion for different values in the ozone concentration and humidity. The synthetic RGB for MSG are based on the use of the ECMWF model with RTTOV package and the METEOSAT Second Generation coefficients. Also synthetic MTG-IRS sounder RGBs have been generated. Based on the use of the RTTOV package with the IASI coefficients for one GRIB file of the ECMWF model, synthetic IASI RTTOV radiances are converted to synthetic MTG-IRS RTTOV brightness temperatures (BT). After one selection of the most adequate MTG-IRS brightness temperatures (BTs), two MTG-sounder synthetic RGBs are created. This is a proving ground experiment for the MTG sounder era

Determining the spectroscopic mass ratio in interacting binaries: Application to X-Ray Nova Sco 1994

We present a model for determining the mass ratio in interacting binaries by directly fitting the observed spectrum with synthetic spectra. We make direct use of NextGen model atmospheres intensities which are the most comprehensive and detailed models available for cool stars. We fully take into account the varying temperature and gravity across the secondary star's photosphere, by incorporating the synthetic spectra into the secondary star's Roche geometry. As a result, we determine the exact rotationally broadened spectrum of the secondary star and so eliminate the need for a limb-darkening law, and the uncertainties associated with it. As an example we determine the mass ratio for the well studied soft X-ray transient Nova Sco 1994. In order to obtain a more accurate determination of the mass ratio, which does not depend on assumptions about the rotation profile and limb-darkening coefficients, we use our model to compute the exact rotationally broadened model spectrum, which we compare directly with the observed intermediate resolution spectrum of Nova Sco 1994. We determine the mass ratio of Nova Sco 1994 to be 0.419+/-0.028 (90 percent confidence), which is the most accurate determination of the binary mass ratio in an X-ray binary. This result combined with the binary mass function and inclination angle gives a refined black hole mass of 5.99+\-0.42 Mo (90 percent confidence). We also perform simulations which show that, for an F-type secondary star, the standard rotation profile with zero and continuum value for the line limb-darkening coefficient gives a value for q that brackets the value found using the full geometrical treatment.Comment: 11 pages including 5 figures, accepted by MNRA

Matching radiative transfer models and radiosonde data from the EPS/Metop Sodankylä campaign to IASI measurements

Radiances observed from IASI are compared to calculated ones. Calculated radiances are obtained using several radiative transfer models (OSS, LBLRTM v11.3 and v11.6) on best estimates of the atmospheric state vectors. The atmospheric state vectors are derived from cryogenic frost point hygrometer and humidity dry bias corrected RS92 measurements flown on sondes launched 1 h and 5 min before IASI overpass time. The temperature and humidity best estimate profiles are obtained by interpolating or extrapolating these measurements to IASI overpass time. The IASI observed and calculated radiances match to within one sigma IASI instrument noise in the spectral region where water vapour is a strong absorber (wavenumber, ν, in the range of 1500 ≤ ν ≤ 1570 and 1615 ≤ ν ≤ 1800 cm<sup>−1</sup>)