Managing alliance configuration and dyadic learning performance in coopetition

Abstract

Firms decide to form global alliances to seek new knowledge and innovation from different sources, even from their competitors. However, the mechanism for managing both cooperation and competition in these knowledge-seeking alliances are much less understood. This research is intended to disentangle the learning race phenomenon in an alliance of two competing companies. We raise questions on how firms could reconcile the dilemma between cooperation and competition and what is the best configuration for an alliance portfolio that contributes to a dyadic learning performance in coopetition. We tested the hypothesis with 680 samples from 136 firms in the biotech industry from 1998-2002. The results supported all the hypotheses as follows: strong ties have an inverted U-shaped effect on specific learning capability gap (SLCG) and the technological diversity has a role in reversing the relationship between the strong ties and SLCG which previously was seen as an inverted U-shape, but became U-shaped.