A Study On The Pattern Selection In Enterprise Technology Alliances Based On Learning Capability

With the economic globalization and high-speed technological progress,technology alliances,used widely in many industries as an important tool for enterprises to enforce technological innovation,have developed a lot these years,and,technology alliances patterns selected by enterprises are also getting diversified.Technology alliances patterns not only include selection of alliances partners,but also related to alliances organizational pattems and governance mechanism selection,deciding the formation and performance of enterprises technology alliances.This article systematically analyzes patterns selection of enterprises technology alliances,which not only can rich existing research on enterprises technology alliances,but also can resolve problem that rate of failure rises in enterprises technology alliances nowadays.After establishing technological cooperation relationship with other enterprises through technology alliances,enterprises can get access to the exclusive knowledge of other enterprises in alliances knowledge pool.In fact,technology alliance is a dynamic process in which enterprises learn from each other based on technological cooperation through initiative spill-over and passive spill-over,because each side of the alliance has to transfer part of its knowledge into the alliance to ensure the success of cooperation,and then learn from each other secretly.Different from existing research,this article explains the difference of enterprises alliances pattern selection with enterprises learning capability instead of external environment factors.This article firstly analyzes the feature of learning in alliances,components and influencing factors of enterprises learning capability in technology alliances.Then,based on the strategic sequence for enterprises technology patterns selection,this article divides enterprises technology patterns selection into two phases:In the firsts phase,enterprises select alliances partners,including vertical and horizontal partners,which means enterprises seeking knowledge source partners who can meet their knowledge and strategy demand in numerous potential copartners;In the second phase,enterprises select alliances organizational pattems,including equity and agreement alliances,through which enterprises can select effective govemance mechanism to ensure the alliances stability and realize enterprises learning.According to this division framework,this article builds game models to study the influence of learning capability on enterprises technology alliances partner selection for it affects the barriers in alliances when sharing knowledge and the influence of learning capability on enterprises technology alliances organizational patterns selection for it affects the stability of alliances,moreover,the latter is divided into two situations:symmetrical and asymmetrical learning capability in both sides of alliances. The result shows that enterprises with higher learning capability tend to select vertical technology alliances patterns,while enterprises with lower learning capability tend to select horizontal technology alliances patterns;when it comes to the selection of organizational technology alliances patterns,if both sides of the alliances have high learning capability,enterprises tend to select equity organizational technology alliances patterns,however,if both sides have lower learning capability or have asymmetrical learning capability,enterprises tend to select agreement organizational technology alliances patterns.To prove our study,this article chooses 84 enterprises participating technology alliances and calculates the value of learning capability in each alliance enterprise,based on which this article does regression analysis of the influence between learning capability and enterprises technology alliances partner selection as well as the influence between learning capability and enterprises technology alliances organizational patterns selection with Logit model.