Non-Cooperation -- the Dark Side of Strategic Alliances

What influences your partners' attitudes toward your alliance? What factors allow them to act on non-cooperative impulses? How can you structure your alliance to reduce opportunities for non-cooperation? This book explores the influences on a firm's attitudes toward its alliance, and highlights the connections between these factors. The book defines a framework to measure power and interdependence to determine which firms are able to act on non-cooperative impulses, and case studies illustrate how alliances may be structured to reduce opportunities for non-cooperation. Cover......Page 1 Contents......Page 8 List of Tables......Page 10 List of Figures......Page 11 List of Abbreviations......Page 12 Acknowledgements......Page 14 Foreword......Page 16 1 The Dark Side of Strategic Alliances......Page 20 What is a strategic alliance?......Page 22 Alliances: the double-edged sword......Page 25 Organization of the book......Page 27 2 The Challenge of Non-Cooperation......Page 30 Assumptions......Page 31 Cooperation and non-cooperation......Page 35 Influences on the firm’s attitude toward alliance......Page 40 Summary......Page 48 3 Power and Interdependence: the Firm’s Ability to Act......Page 50 Defining power and interdependence......Page 52 Measuring power and interdependence......Page 58 Applying power and interdependence......Page 66 4 Microsoft: Power and the Limits of Power......Page 68 Why Microsoft?......Page 69 Influences on the firm’s attitude......Page 71 Power and interdependence......Page 73 Microsoft in the PC market: exercising power......Page 75 Microsoft and technology convergence: the limits of power......Page 93 Conclusions......Page 103 Technologies and markets......Page 105 Ballard Power Systems......Page 112 Power and interdependence......Page 120 Constructing interdependence......Page 133 Conclusions......Page 136 6 Global Airline Alliances: Constructing Interdependence......Page 138 Industry environment......Page 139 Influences on the firm’s attitude......Page 145 Behaviours......Page 148 Power and interdependence......Page 150 Historical alliances: Swissair......Page 154 Modern era of global alliances......Page 160 Conclusions......Page 175 7 Putting the Firm Back Into Alliance......Page 177 Lessons learned......Page 178 Managerial implications......Page 186 Going forward......Page 187 Notes......Page 190 Bibliography......Page 200 Index......Page 227 Strategic alliances can create competitive advantages for firms. But, alliances also bring new risks. Managers must be realistic about firms' behaviours in alliances: non-cooperation can result in the failure of an alliance or a firm. What factors generate non-cooperative impulses? What allows firms to act on them? How can alliances be structured to reduce opportunities for non-cooperation? This book explores the different influences on firms' attitudes toward cooperation and highlights the connections between these factors. The book also provides a framework for assessing how much alliance partners need each other's resources, and to identify which firms are able to act on non-cooperative impulses. A series of case studies operationalize the theory and the framework. The Microsoft case uses documents from its US antitrust trial to show how it used its partners' reliance on it to its advantage. The airline industry alliances and the Ballard case, which traces the development of commercial fuel-cell vehicles, show how firms use formal and informal structures to strengthen ties amongst alliance partners

Adopting a firm-level framework of analysis, Suen (a consultant in the technology and airline industries) develops a theory of non- cooperation between alliance-partners. His theory identifies power and interdependence factors that allow for non-cooperation that are functions of types and uniqueness of the resources contributed to the alliance, the firm's financial position, and the extent to which alliance partners are technologically or operationally integrated. He also examines motivations for non-cooperation in terms of economic returns, strategic positioning, and firm-internal considerations. Finally, he provides case studies of Microsoft, Ballard Power Systems, and international aviation, illustrating contrasting alliance environments in terms of industry type, alliance size, extent of structure, and vertical versus horizontal relationships. Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

"This book explores the influences on firm's attitudes toward cooperation and highlights the connections between these factors. The book also provides a framework to measure power and interdependence to determine for assessing how much alliance partners need each other's resources, and to identify which firms are able to act on non-cooperative impulses."--Jacket