Structuring of Strategic Alliances in the ICT-Industry: A Modelling Approach Using Selected Organisational Theories

Master's Thesis from the year 2002 in the subject Leadership and Human Resources - Miscellaneous, grade: 1,0 (A), Bielefeld University (Applied Computer Science), language: English, abstract: This study examines what factors determine the choice of governance structure made byalliance partners in the ICT-industry. First, the explanatory power of the transaction costtheory, the resource-based view, the structural contingency approach, strategic choice theory,resource dependence theory, organisational ecology and principal agent theory to answer thisquestion is surveyed. A deeper analysis using transaction cost theory, resource-based viewand structural contingency approach is employed to develop three models of alliancestructuring. Propositions related to the models are then tested on a sample of 101 strategicalliances in the ICT-industry. The findings suggest that there exist five influential factors: (1)the existence of alliance-specific investment by the partners, (2) the number of functionalareas contained by the alliance, (3) a limited duration of the alliance, (4) the type of resourcescontributed by the partners, and (5) uncertainty of the tasks of the alliance. These factors arethen recombined to form one integrated model. The success of this approach and theusefulness of such a modelling approach in general are discussed alongside future directionsfor research.