Exploration or exploitation? Small firms' alliance strategies with large firms

Yang, Haibin; Zheng, Youye; Xing, Zhao

doi:10.1002/smj.2082

Cited by 178 publications

(161 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…Nowhere is this more evident than in exploratory alliances, motivated by the desire to discover new opportunities (Koza and Lewin 1999), where firms face constant value allocation renegotiations about intellectual property rights and innovation benefits of newly discovered technologies that were impossible to foresee at the outset (Rothaermel and Deeds 2004;Yang et al 2014). In that context, new firms, such as spin-offs, which often lack the experience associated with managing alliances, are disadvantaged vis-à-vis their large alliance partners (Rosenbusch et al 2011;Yang et al 2014). Obviously, these disadvantages are less decisive in alliances of spin-offs with SMEs where both partners face a more similar level playing field.…”

Section: Theoretical Background and Hypothesesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Alliances and the innovation performance of corporate and public research spin-off firms

2017

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We explore the innovation performance benefits of alliances for spin-off firms, in particular spin-offs either from other firms or from public research organizations. During the early years of the emerging combinatorial chemistry industry, the industry on which our empirical analysis focuses, spin-offs engaged in alliances with large and established partners, partners of similar type and size, and with public research organizations, often for different reasons. We seek to understand to what extent alliances of spin-offs with other firms (either large-or small-and medium-sized firms) affected their innovation performance and also how this performance may have been affected by their corporate or public research background. We find evidence that in general alliances of spin-offs with other firms, in particular alliances with large firms, increased their innovation performance. Corporate spin-offs that formed alliances with other firms outperformed public research spin-offs with such alliances. This suggests that, in terms of their innovation performance, corporate spin-offs that engaged in alliances with other firms seemed to have benefitted from their prior corporate background. Interestingly, it turns out that the negative impact of alliances on the innovation performance of public research spin-offs was largely affected by their alliances with small-and medium-sized firms.

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Section: Theoretical Background and Hypothesesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Alliances and the innovation performance of corporate and public research spin-off firms

2017

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“…The number of alliance formations between large and small firms is steadily growing (Mellewigt and Decker, 2014;Yang et al, 2014). For smaller firms, which often lack brand awareness, market power, and financial resources, forming alliances with large, established corporations often represents the only way to get rapid access to necessary resources at relatively low costs while remaining independent (Dyer and Singh, 1998;Rothaermel, 2001).…”

Section: Firm Sizementioning

confidence: 99%

Consumer perceptions of co-branding alliances: Organizational dissimilarity signals and brand fit

Decker

Baade

2016

J Brand Manag

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This study explores how consumers evaluate co-branding alliances between dissimilar partner firms. Customers are well aware that different firms are behind a co-branded product and observe the partner firms' characteristics. Drawing on signaling theory, we assert that consumers use organizational characteristics as signals in their assessment of brand fit and for their purchasing decisions. Some organizational signals are beyond the control of the co-branding partners or at least they cannot alter them on short notice. We use a quasi-experimental design and test how cobranding partner dissimilarity affects brand fit perception. The results show that co-branding partner dissimilarity in terms of firm size, industry scope, and country-of-origin image negatively affects brand fit perception. Firm age dissimilarity does not exert significant influence. Because brand fit generally fosters a benevolent consumer attitude towards a co-branding alliance, the findings suggest that high partner dissimilarity may reduce overall co-branding alliance performance.

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“…Beyond these connections to rivals resulting from shared formal relationships, our work draws upon agglomeration theory to explain how exposure to rivals may also result from the informal ties and interactions spanning organizations within a partner's geographic cluster. By attending to the knowledge protection and competitive concerns of incumbent firms (Davis, 2016;Davis & Eisenhardt, 2011), we also extend prior alliance research that has largely focused on how smaller technology ventures can protect themselves from their larger, more powerful incumbent firm partners (Diestre & Rajagopalan, 2012;Katila, Rosenberger, & Eisenhardt, 2008;Yang, Zheng, & Zhao, 2014). The knowledge protection and competitive concerns of incumbent firms remain relatively less explored, which is noteworthy because these firms are also exposed to the risk of knowledge loss to their rivals.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 74%

Geographic Co-location of Partners and Rivals: Implications for the Design of R&D Alliances

Ryu¹,

McCann

Reuer

2018

AMJ

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This study advances previous research on the competitive aspects of R&D collaborations that has been mainly interested in knowledge protection concerns in alliances between direct rivals. We join the alliance and agglomeration literatures and argue that geographic co-location between a focal firm's partner and rivals introduces potential indirect paths of knowledge leakage to rivals.Geographic co-location creates significant risks of unintentional knowledge spillovers to rivals while it also increases the likelihood of transactions between the partner firm and the rivals in which firm knowledge can be misappropriated. As a consequence of these risks associated with the co-location of partners and rivals, the focal firm is more likely to employ defense mechanisms when designing alliances. In particular, the focal firm will use equity structures to provide greater monitoring, control, and incentive alignment and will reduce the alliance's scope as well as task interdependence to address knowledge leakage concerns.

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Exploration or exploitation? Small firms' alliance strategies with large firms

Cited by 178 publications

References 45 publications

Alliances and the innovation performance of corporate and public research spin-off firms

Alliances and the innovation performance of corporate and public research spin-off firms

Consumer perceptions of co-branding alliances: Organizational dissimilarity signals and brand fit

Geographic Co-location of Partners and Rivals: Implications for the Design of R&D Alliances

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