The Co-Evolution of Strategic Alliances

TLDR

Strategic alliances are embedded in a firm’s strategic portfolio and co‑evolve with its strategy, environment, and management intent. The study proposes a co‑evolutionary theory and framework that treats strategic alliances as adaptation choices of a firm. The framework characterizes alliance intent as exploitation or exploration and links alliance morphology—absorptive capacity, control, and identification—to intent, thereby driving alliance evolution.

Abstract

This paper proposes a co-evolutionary theory of strategic alliances. The paper proposes a framework which views strategic alliances in the context of the adaptation choices of a firm. Strategic alliances, in this view, are embedded in a firm's strategic portfolio, and co-evolve with the firm's strategy, the institutional, organizational and competitive environment, and with management intent for the alliance. Specifically, we argue that alliance intent may be described, at any time, as having either exploitation or exploration objectives. We further discuss how the morphology of an alliance—absorptive capacity, control, and identification—may be isomorphic with its intent, and, in the aggregate, drive the evolution of the population of alliances.