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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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: In this article, the authors propose that the development of institutions that reduce the risks of entering new sectors has a stronger effect on the founding rates of firms using novel technologies than on firms using established technologies.
Abstract: Building on sociological research on institutions and organizations and psychological research on risk and decision making, we propose that the development of institutions that reduce the risks of entering new sectors has a stronger effect on the founding rates of firms using novel technologies than on firms using established technologies. In an analysis of the independent-power sector of the electricity industry from 1980 to 1992, we found that the development of regulative and cognitive institutions legitimated the entire sector and provided incentives for all sector entrants; thus, foundings of all kinds of firms multiplied rapidly but had a stronger impact on those using risky novel technologies. In contrast, the central normative institutions that developed in this sector, state-level trade associations, provided greater support for particular forms (those using established technologies) and thus increased foundings of those favored forms more than foundings of less favored forms (those using novel t...
314 citations
TL;DR: The authors define forms as a type of socially coded identity, and define identity in terms of social codes that specify the properties that an entity can legitimately possess and can be enforced by insiders or outsiders.
Abstract: Sociologists frequently invoke the concept of form when analyzing organizations, collective action, art, music, culture and other phenomena. Nonetheless, the form concept has not received careful theoretical analysis, either generally or in specific context. Using the tools of formal logic and set theory, we propose a language for defining social forms that is sufficiently general to incorporate feature-based, position-based and boundary-based approaches to defining forms. We focus on organizational forms although we intend our conceptualization to be general. We define forms as a type of socially coded identity. We define identity in terms of social codes that specify the properties that an entity can legitimately possess. These codes can be enforced by insiders or outsiders. We claim that one knows that a social code exists when one observes that departures from the codes after periods of conformity cause a devaluation of the entity by relevant insiders and/or outsiders. This construction allows us to define a population as the set of entities with a common minimal external identity in a bounded system in a period of time. The minimal property ensures that we localize to the most specific socially enforced identities. The reliance on identities instead of forms allows us to define populations that never achieve form status and to extend population definitions back to the period of early legitimation. Research design implications follow.
309 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors predict that businesses developing high-complexity technologies face higher risks of failure than other businesses because of greater competency demands and higher organization complexity, and they also predict that failure is more likely in high complexity technologies.
Abstract: This study's predictions are that businesses developing high-complexity technologies face higher risks of failure than other businesses because of greater competency demands and higher organization...
304 citations
"Organizational Identity and Interor..." refers background in this paper
...Alliances in the software industry are also important for these reasons and well researched in the strategy literature (e.g., Lavie, 2007; Singh, 1997)....
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TL;DR: The literature on interorganizational cooperation is examined for theoretical overlap and commonly discussed variables as mentioned in this paper, and these variables are organized according to their importance as potential moti cation variables.
Abstract: The literature on interorganizational cooperation is examined for theoretical overlap and commonly discussed variables. These variables are organized according to their importance as potential moti...
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TL;DR: Delacroix et al. as mentioned in this paper used event-history analysis to examine the joint effect of organizational characteristics and of environmental variation on organizational change and found evidence of organizational change that is responsive to environmental variation but little evidence that such organizational change affects the probability of disbanding.
Abstract: Jacques Delacroix Santa Clara University Anand Swaminathan University of Michigan, Ann Arbor In this longitudinal study of the California Wine industry between 1946 and 1984, we used event-history analysis to examine the joint effect of organizational characteristics and of environmental variation on organizational change. Organizational change was assessed with two forms of diversification and with land acquisition and divestment. We then examined the joint effects of organizational characteristics and of organizational change on the probability of disbanding to see if either predicted organizational disbanding. We found evidence of organizational change that is responsive to environmental variation but little evidence that such organizational change affects the probability of disbanding.'
280 citations