Organizational Identity and Interorganizational Alliances
01 Jan 2012-
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the relationship between organizational identity and the formation and performance implications of interorganizational alliances and developed a theory of how this variation affects the search for alliance partners in terms of the speed of alliance formation and the diversity between the new organization and its partners.
Abstract: This dissertation examines the relationship between organizational identity and the formation and performance implications of interorganizational alliances. The first study investigates the effect of an organization's identity on its initial alliance portfolio formation, addressing how becoming comprehensible through organizational identity is a fundamental step in order for a new organization to be accepted by the market. Through different categorizations, some new organizations will be more comprehensible and possess clearer identities in the market than others. I develop a theory of how this variation affects the search for alliance partners in terms of the speed of alliance formation and the diversity between the new organization and its partners. The second study investigates how organizational identity affects the impact of alliances on performance outcomes. Alliances that explore and experiment tend to affect organizational outcomes negatively, at least in the short term. Although exploration strategies facilitate learning and adaptation in the long run, they incur costs due to the nature of experimentation. I advance an alternative perspective that organizational identity plays a role in this alliance-performance link. Depending on the strength of an organization's identity in terms of how coherent and taken-for-granted its categorization or social grouping is, the effect on performance may be more or less negative. Overall, this research indicates that organizational identity matters both to an organization's initial alliance portfolio formation and to the impact of this alliance portfolio on performance outcomes. This work contributes to the literature streams of both organizational identity and alliances, and presents the first systematic investigation of the link between them.
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301 citations
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TL;DR: In this paper, the influence of the structure and composition of a firm's alliance network on its exploratory innovation was examined, and the benefits of network closure and access to diverse information can coexist in a firms' alliance network.
Abstract: This study examines the influence of the structure and composition of a firm's alliance network on its exploratory innovation. In a longitudinal investigation of 77 telecommunications equipment manufacturers, I find the technological diversity of a firm's alliance partners increases its exploratory innovation. I also find that network density among a firm's alliance partners strengthens the influence of diversity. These results suggest the benefits of network closure and access to diverse information can coexist in a firm's alliance network and the combination of the two increases exploratory innovation.
54 citations
Posted Content•
TL;DR: A review of the existing literature on alliance portfolio literature can be found in this paper, where three key research areas are identified: (a) the emergence of alliance portfolios, (b) the configuration of alliance portfolio, and (c) the management of portfolio.
Abstract: The engagement of firms in multiple simultaneous strategic alliances with different partners has become a ubiquitous phenomenon in today's business landscape This article offers a review of the extant alliance portfolio literature and organizes it around three key research areas: (a) the emergence of alliance portfolios, (b) the configuration of alliance portfolios, and (c) the management of alliance portfolios The article also highlights existing gaps in the present understanding of alliance portfolios and outlines a research agenda by identifying key research questions and issues in the areas where further research is needed
36 citations
References
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TL;DR: It is found that over and above their independent effects, concurrent high levels of BD and CD yield synergistic benefits, and managers in resource-constrained contexts may benefit from a focus on managing trade-offs between exploration and exploitation demands, but for firms that have access to sufficient resources, the simultaneous pursuit of Exploration and exploitation is both possible and desirable.
Abstract: Significant ambiguity remains in the literature regarding the conceptualization of organizational ambidexterity. We unpack this construct into one with two dimensions we term the balance dimension of ambidexterity (BD) and the combined dimension of ambidexterity (CD). BD corresponds to a firm's orientation to maintain a close relative balance between exploratory and exploitative activities, whereas CD corresponds to their combined magnitude. We reason that these dimensions are conceptually distinct, and rely on different causal mechanisms to enhance firm performance. We find that over and above their independent effects, concurrent high levels of BD and CD yield synergistic benefits. We also find that BD is more beneficial to resource-constrained firms, whereas CD is more beneficial to firms having greater access to internal and/or external resources. These results indicate that managers in resource-constrained contexts may benefit from a focus on managing trade-offs between exploration and exploitation demands, but for firms that have access to sufficient resources, the simultaneous pursuit of exploration and exploitation is both possible and desirable.
1,131 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a case study of the quality circle management fashion focuses on three features of management-knowledge entrepreneurs' discourse promoting or discrediting such fashions: its lifecycle, forces triggering stages in its life cycle, and the type of collective learning it fostered.
Abstract: This theory-development case study of the quality circle management fashion focuses on three features of management-knowledge entrepreneurs' discourse promoting or discrediting such fashions: its lifecycle, forces triggering stages in its lifecycle, and the type of collective learning it fostered. Results suggest, first, that variability in when different types of knowledge entrepreneurs begin, continue, and stop promoting fashions explains variability in their lifecycles; second, that historically unique conjunctions of forces, endogenous and exogenous to the management-fashion market, trigger and shape management fashions; and third, that emotionally charged, enthusiastic, and unreasoned discourse characterizes the upswings of management fashion waves, whereas more reasoned, unemotional, and qualified discourse characterizes their downswings, evidencing a pattern of superstitious collective learning.
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors developed a mapping of the firms' positions in an industry and applied this model in a longitudinal study of the formation of alliances between organizations, showing that firms in crowded positions and those with high prestige form alliances at the highest rates.
Abstract: I wish to acknowledge many helpful suggestions from Biil Barnett, Ron Burt, Glenn Carroll, Karel Cool, Mike Hannan, Jeff Pfeffer, Joel Podolny, and Jesper Sorensen, Comments from Mark Mizruchi and three anonymous reviewers greatiy improved this paper. Financial support for this research was provided by the FMC Scholar progfam at the University of Chicago, Graduate School of Business and from the State Farm Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship. The paper develops a net\/vork-based mapping of the technoiogicai positions of the firms in an industry and applies this model in a longitudinal study of the formation of alliances between organizations. In the analysis, the positions of high-technology firms in their competitive environment are stratified on two dimensions: crowding and prestige. Organizations in crowded positions are those that participate in technological segments in which many firms actively Innovate, and prestigious firms are those with a track record of developing seminal inventions. The study's principal empirical findings are that firms in crowded positions and those with high prestige form alliances at the highest rates. The statistical analyses, performed on a sample of semiconductor firms during a six-year period, demonstrate that crowding and prestige predict alliance formations at the firm level (which organizations establish the greatest number of alliances) and at the dyad level (which particular pairs of firms choose to collaborate).*
1,003 citations
"Organizational Identity and Interor..." refers background or methods in this paper
...At the same time, industry dynamics create complementarities and competition among firms, which affects the formation of strategic alliance portfolios (Eisenhardt and Schoonhoven, 1996; Gulati, 1995; Stuart, 1998)....
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...At the same time, industry dynamics create complementarities and competition among firms, which affects the formation of interorganizational alliances (Eisenhardt and Schoonhoven, 1996; Gulati, 1995; Stuart, 1998)....
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...Technology firms, in particular, will form ties with other technologically similar firms to collaborate on innovations, as they are better able to exchange knowledge with each other than technologically dissimilar firms (Mowery, Oxley, and Silverman, 1996; Stuart, 1998)....
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...Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2417023 3 Also, Stuart (1998) showed that firms tend to select partners that are classified in technology segments that are similar to those firms....
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...Researchers (e.g., Eisenhardt and Schoonhoven, 1996; Stuart 1998) studying the semiconductor industry have used the strategy of collecting alliance data from press releases and trade magazines....
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"Organizational Identity and Interor..." refers background in this paper
...For instance, entrepreneurs may use strategies such as influencing convergence around a standard technology to create and sustain new markets (Aldrich and Fiol, 1994) or claiming a new market actively so that they become the cognitive referent for it (Santos and Eisenhardt, 2009)....
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