Alliance management and innovation under uncertainty

Drawing on the configuration argument of strategic fit – i.e., an effective alignment of a firm's strategy with its environment, internal structures, and processes – and the resource-based view, this paper clarifies the impact of alliance strategy, alliance management resources, and alliance management capabilities on innovation performance in collaborative ventures. This study of 441 collaborative ventures in the electronics industry offers empirical support for the configuration argument. First, greater alliance strategy formalization influences innovation performance directly and indirectly. Alliance management capabilities – that reflect organizational routines to implement an alliance strategy – partially mediate this effect. Second, alliance management capabilities leverage alliance management resources in that the effect of the former on innovation performance is moderated by the latter. Furthermore, greater innovation strategy formalization affects innovation performance and moderates the direct effect of alliance strategy formalization on innovation performance; an effect that increases with technological uncertainty

Dynamic Capabilities, Internationalization and Growth of Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises: The Roles of Research and Development Intensity and Collaborative Intensity

Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can benefit from internationalization. However, there is little evidence of the extent of the benefit and its dependence on both research and development (R&D) intensity and collaborative intensity. Drawing on data of 262 SMEs, this study illuminates why some SMEs benefit more from internationalization than others, thereby illustrating an advanced application of partial least squares structural equation modeling by demonstrating conditional mediation analysis with two interdependent exogenous moderators (i.e., testing a second-stage three-way conditional mediation). Our findings substantiate that an SME’s dynamic capabilities affect its degree of internationalization and indirectly its growth, and suggest a positive marginal growth impact of internationalization provided that an SME’s R&D and collaborative intensities are proportional; when they are disproportional (i.e., one is “greater” than the other), SMEs do not experience positive marginal growth

Dynamic Capabilities, Internationalization and Growth of Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises: The Roles of Research and Development Intensity and Collaborative Intensity

Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can benefit from internationalization. However, there is little evidence of the extent of the benefit and its dependence on both research and development (R&D) intensity and collaborative intensity. Drawing on data of 262 SMEs, this study illuminates why some SMEs benefit more from internationalization than others, thereby illustrating an advanced application of partial least squares structural equation modeling by demonstrating conditional mediation analysis with two interdependent exogenous moderators (i.e., testing a second-stage three-way conditional mediation). Our findings substantiate that an SME’s dynamic capabilities affect its degree of internationalization and indirectly its growth, and suggest a positive marginal growth impact of internationalization provided that an SME’s R&D and collaborative intensities are proportional; when they are disproportional (i.e., one is “greater” than the other), SMEs do not experience positive marginal growth

Digitalization of cross‐border R&D alliances: Configurational insights and cognitive digitalization biases

Research Summary: Firms implement digital technology for improving coordination and communication in cross-border R+D alliances. However, there is great ambivalence regarding how digitalization influences cross-border knowledge transfers. Our analysis clarifies some of this ambivalence by providing different configurations of absorptive capacity in cross-border R+D alliances. The fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) reveals only low absorptive capacity achievement in most configurations of digital technology implementation. The findings indicate effects of cognitive digitalization biases, under which firms take the benefits of digital technology for granted while ignoring deep-level challenges rooted in the contextuality of international ties. However, high absorptive capacity is achievable when (1) allying with bigger and younger partners, (2) under technological similarity, and (3) coping with the associated digitalization biases. Managerial Summary: Firms are eager to grasp the potential of digital technology. Within R+D alliances, digital technology is deemed to facilitate better coordination and communication. However, advantages from digital transformation are not always realized, as firms may overestimate the ease and usability of the underpinning technologies. We find that learning and understanding of partner knowledge is improved when R+D partnerships are forged between bigger and smaller partners, when partners feature technological similarities and both parties are similarly minded regarding technologies and do not take technology advantages for granted

Strategy frames in coopetition : an examination of coopetition entry factors in high-tech firms

Collaboration with competitors offers unique advantages such as increasing market, innovation, and financial performance. However, the degree of coopetition adoption varies between firms, as does the ability to achieve intended outcomes. We address this variety through the lens of strategic frames, essential for understanding business environment interpretations that managers develop, interactions with other actors that they engage in, and the subsequent performance firms may achieve. We examine associations between external and internal coopetition factors as perceived by coopeting managers. To single out the coopetition factors seen by respondents as the most relevant and to evaluate their mutual associations, we apply traditional regression analyses on survey data collected from 352 high-technology firms in Poland. To fully embrace the causal complexity, we advance our regression-based insights by using a complementary necessary condition analysis (NCA) and bottleneck analysis. Our results suggest that coopeting managers place higher importance on customer-driven rather than on resource-driven coopetition factors when considered as sufficient leveraging factors. Still, the complementary NCA reveals internal resources as critical factors for the perception of external factors of coopetition. Finally, we identify external technological development as the most limiting bottleneck for the perception of most internal coopetition factors, highlighting coopetition as a technology-driven strategy

Dynamic Capabilities, Internationalization and Growth of Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises: The Roles of Research and Development Intensity and Collaborative Intensity

Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can benefit from internationalization. However, there is little evidence of the extent of the benefit and its dependence on both research and development (R&D) intensity and collaborative intensity. Drawing on data of 262 SMEs, this study illuminates why some SMEs benefit more from internationalization than others, thereby illustrating an advanced application of partial least squares structural equation modeling by demonstrating conditional mediation analysis with two interdependent exogenous moderators (i.e., testing a second-stage three-way conditional mediation). Our findings substantiate that an SME’s dynamic capabilities affect its degree of internationalization and indirectly its growth, and suggest a positive marginal growth impact of internationalization provided that an SME’s R&D and collaborative intensities are proportional; when they are disproportional (i.e., one is “greater” than the other), SMEs do not experience positive marginal growth