Coordinating New Product Development in Strategic Alliances

What really is alliance management capability and how does it impact alliance outcomes and success?

“…Various researchers have asserted that the most critical challenges in a given interfirm collaboration revolve around the uncertainties associated with the cooperative motivation of the partners (Axelrod, 1984;Williamson, 1985;Parkhe, 1993;Das and Teng, 1998;Khanna, Gulati, and Nohria, 1998) and with the management of task interdependence between them (e.g., Litwak and Hylton, 1962;Borys and Jemison, 1989;Gulati and Singh, 1998;Gerwin, 2004). They are sometimes referred to as 'relational risk and performance risk' (Das and Teng, 2001: 253) or as 'problems of cooperation.…”

“…It involves the ability to identify and build consensus about task requirements in a given alliance, the nature of the associated interdependence between partners, and the specification of working procedures for task execution-it includes specifying the roles and responsibilities of each participant in task execution and how to adapt them in the face of changing circumstances (Litwak and Hylton, 1962;Lawrence and Lorsch, 1967;Thompson, 1967;Gerwin, 2004;Gulati et al, 2005). This implies that coordination ability includes knowledge and skills to match the nature of interdependence between the two entities with appropriate coordination devices, chosen from the ample repository available for firms, to manage them.…”

“…First, because of the divided authority structure and the physical, cognitive, and cultural distance between partners, many alliances suffer from coordination lapses due to inappropriate interfaces and boundary-spanning mechanisms, as well as unclear roles, procedures, responsibilities, and loci of control (Doz, 1988;Bronder and Pritzl, 1992;Larson, 1992;Mohr and Spekman, 1994;Park and Ungson, 2001;Gerwin, 2004;Luo, 2006). These coordination failures impede the implementation of concerted actions needed to capitalize on the specialized but interdependent activities of both partners (Thompson, 1967: 55); in some cases, the cost of failed coordination may even exceed the benefits of concerted action (Park and Ungson, 2001).…”

Supplier traits for better customer firm innovation performance

“…Gerwin and Ferris's (2004) conceptual investigation of various project organizational options suggest that the preferred option of firms working either independently or with partners in NPD projects depends on the newness of the NPD alliance, the cooperativeness of the alliance in the past, and the distribution of skills among the partners. Gerwin's (2004) theoretical model emphasizes the importance of reducing the coordination gap in joint NPD projects. Mismatches between the required and actual coordination of tasks negatively influence the performance of a NPD project.…”

OEM Participation in SME Suppliers New Product Development Efforts

“…Second, OEM participation can go as far as a co-developer and underscores the extent to which the manufacturer's task involvement constitutes a significant portion of the development tasks. When the OEM is involved in the component development process, the overall NPD process becomes a joint problem-solving approach, the outcome of which is determined by the mechanisms used to coordinate the manufacturer and component supplier (Gerwin, 2004;Fang, 2008).…”