CentER

Paulo V. Cunha

Abstract:
Strategic alliances have gradually emerged over the last decades as a primary vehicle for corporate growth. Firms increasingly use strategic alliances to enter new markets, develop new products, and obtain access to relevant knowledge and technological capabilities. However, while alliances can promote growth and create value they can also destroy it. The prevalence of alliances coupled with the considerable variation in their success rates has led to an increased effort by both scholars and practitioners to find out whether firms benefit from entering alliances and what makes for a successful alliance. Yet, despite the large number of studies conducted to date, past empirical research provides no consensus on (a) whether, on average, firms benefit from entering alliances, (b) why some alliances create more firm value than others, and (c) the determinants of the performance of alliances themselves. Research presented in this dissertation uses meta-analysis to address these questions and obtain firm empirical generalizations on the performance outcomes of strategic alliances.

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