Opening up for innovation : the antecedents of multi partner alliance performance

Abstract

In this era of open innovation, firms are increasingly cooperating with more than two firms to increase their innovative output. In these 'multi partner alliances', firms cooperate to bring products faster to the market, to create scale advantages and to stand stronger against the competition. Whilst previous research has devoted attention towards bilateral alliances, multi partner alliances have not been researched in much detail. In this thesis, the antecedents of multi partner alliances are explored in three empirical studies using a climate approach. Multi partner alliance performance can be explained by four interorganizational climates; the financial, relational, innovation and learning, organizational and management climate. This study shows that the antecedents of performance are dependent on the phase in the lifecycle of the multi partner alliance. In the pre-formation phase, the relational and management and organizational climate have a positive impact on alliance performance. However, in the post-formation phase, the relational climate, the financial climate and the innovation and learning climate benefit alliance performance. In addition, this thesis shows that in multi partner alliances, formal and social governance are positively related to each other. This study also found that in the post-formation phase, combining financial and relational governance might prove to be difficult, as their interaction has a negative effect on alliance performance. The findings of this thesis offer several academic implications as well as suggestions for practitioners such as managers and policy makers.