BUILDING ALLIANCE MANAGEMENT CAPABILITY: THE ROLE OF A FIRM’S REPERTORY OF EMBEDDED ALLIANCES AS VALUABLE EXPERIENCE

In this paper we examine which type of alliance experience matters most for developing an alliance management capability. Although experience is deemed to be an important antecedent of a firm’s capability to manage collaborations, we argue that only some types of alliances are likely to foster the development of such a capability, thus representing the valuable alliance experience. Starting from the identification of the constitutive skills of an alliance management capability, we develop a theoretical framework which proposes that only alliances resembling the nature of the so-called embedded ties provide firms with these specific skills. We refer to the collection of such alliances as a firm’s repertory of embedded alliances. Moreover, we argue that, in order to affect the capability building process, such a repertory needs to be not only extensive but also heterogeneous in terms of alliance goals, contents, governance forms and partners. Finally, we assume a stronger effect of the valuable alliance experience when leveraged through the use of deliberate learning mechanisms.