Towards an Integrative Approach to Alliance Failure

Inhaltsangabe:Abstract:
The past decade has seen increased academic interest in strategic alliances because alliances have developed to a centerpiece of corporate strategy. The number of newly formed alliances has been growing at more than 25 percent annually throughout the last decade and most large companies have at least 30 alliances; many have more than 100 in their alliance portfolio. According to empirical studies about 90 percent of the questioned companies are embedded in one or more alliances, which seem to be proliferating with increasing competition and globalization.
Yet despite the ubiquity of strategic alliances, reality shows that many alliances fail. They do not meet the goals of the parent companies and fall short of expectation for different reasons i.e. alliances do not perform as intended. Empirical researchers find that between 30 percent and 70 percent of alliances fail. However, there is neither a comprehensiv understanding of alliance failure and success nor a managerial framework that would allow to improve alliance performance.
Although a number of theoretical approaches as well as empirical studies have developed possible answers for the understanding of alliance failure by examining single factors, the review of the existing literature and investigation into the different theories shows that the reasoning is of a narrow view. To date, researchers mostly pay attention to individual aspects, but do not hold a holistic perspective. Most studies attribute failure to a wide range of factors including cultural, technical, financial, structural, and strategic aspects. The identified factors are neither wrong nor right but based on different assumptions and views that still remain unclassified, unstructured and incomparable. Due to overlaps, imprecise terms and a missing conceptual framework, the outcome is very limited in terms of explanation of alliance failure and success. Thus, the literature on alliance failure does not provide an adequate view of the interdependence and system of the identified factors.
Furthermore, researchers have not developed a multidimensional and systematic framework for the analysis of alliance failure and success so far. The importance of the interdependence amongst different alliance failure factors is not reflected in the existing literature.
Due to the high rate of failure of strategic alliances and the lack of a systematic and coherent understanding of the influencing factors of failure, [¿]