Abstract
How will a firm respond to its alliance partner¡¯s misbehavior? We propose two types of response (identity and event responses) and argue that issue salience in different aspects (identity or efficiency) determines which logic is dominant in the firm¡¯s cognitive structure and thus drives its response actions. Our analysis of 474 instances of misbehavior involving 3,728 alliances of Chinese publicly listed firms across 2001-2013 reveals that when partner misbehavior hurt the firm¡¯s identity (i.e., expressive intensity), the firm was more likely to respond with identity accommodation. Similarly, when the misbehavior affected the firm¡¯s rational pursuit of goals (i.e., instrumental intensity), the firm was more likely to respond with event accommodation. Surprisingly, it also shows that expressive intensity is negatively related to event accommodation. Moreover, alliance commitment strengthens (weakens) the relationship between expressive (instrumental) intensity and identity (event) accommodation. Our results advance our understanding of how firms manage and respond to other firms¡¯ misbehavior in an alliance context.
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