Strategic Alliance Capability: Bridging the Individual Back into Inter-Organizational Collaboration

Abstract

Internationalization has accelerated the speed of knowledge generation and innovation. Thus, companies increasingly need to pool and create new resources by engaging in alliances with various partners. However, high failure rates of strategic alliances imply that the degree of a company’s collaboration success is related to the level of its alliance capability. While ”alliance capability” has largely been conceptualized from within the resource based and the dynamic capability view, one of the major drawbacks is the lack of microfoundations, i.e. an explanation of individual knowledge and actions, which drive the development of alliance capability. A modified approach to the capability life-cycle is introduced, which aims at filling this gap. Finally, some implications for managerial practice and for future research are addressed.