A Study Of Relationships Among Resource, Cooperative Risks And Alliance Structure In Competitive Strategic Alliance

Alliance structure is the collaborative formation when firms allying with each other. It is the platform for partner interaction, partnership management and relationship balancing. It is the base for strategic alliance's operating, which makes the issue of alliance structure choice a key focus in strategic management field. Alliance structure choice is especially important for the competitive strategic alliance (or co-opetition relationship) formed by competitors. For the reason that there are simutaneous cooperation and competition strength, competitive strategic alliance has to rely on structure to balance the two opposite force and create values.From the perspective of resouce portfolios and special cooperative risks in competitive strategic alliance, this paper addresses the problem of alliance structure decision. We carry out an integrated study on resouce portfolio, cooperative risks and alliance structure preference by means of some empirical technologies such as moderating effect test, structural equation model and mediation effect test. The direct and indirect influencing pathes are analyzied in order to find out the impacts between alliance structure preference and its inflencing factors. Finally, we attempt to reveal the mechnism of alliance structure decision from the angle of resource type and cooperative risks.In order to accomplish the above goal, we carry out the following studies. Firstly, theoretic analysis is conducted with the purpose to distinguish the particular risks and representative resource types in competitive strategic alliance. Baed on the representative resource type portfolios, a kind of taxonomy for competitive strategic alliance is proposed. We sort competitive strategic alliance into scale alliance and complementary alliance. Secondly, impacts of resource types and cooperative risks on alliance structure preference are examined in order to find out whethe there are differences of those impacts between scale alliance and complementary alliance. Thirdly, structure decision modes of scale competitive strategic alliance and compelementary competitive strategic alliance are discussed respectively. Finally, integrative analysis is carried on to find out the alliance structure decision mechnism of competitive strategic alliance.Based on the theoretical study and empirical anaysis using moderating effect test, structural equation model and mediating effect test with survey data, we get the following results.First of all, significant differences of impacts of resource types and cooperative risks on alliance structure preference are recognized. This find demonstrates that it is necessary to sort competitive strategic alliance into scale alliance and complementary alliance when discussing the structure decision from the angle of resouce and cooperative risks, otherwise there will be mistakes. This result suggests that we find a taxonomy which is feasible and efficient when it is used to analyze the alliance structure decision of competitive strategic alliance.Second of all, as to the scale competitive strategic alliance, we find that partner perceives different cooperative risks when he invests different types of resources into the alliance. In order to make full use of resources and avoid cooperative risks, partners are inclined to choose equity structure for scale competitive strategic alliance.Third of all, as to the compelementary competitive strategic allliance, we find that the relationships among resouce type, cooperative risks and alliance structure preference are more complicated, and partners perceive more types of cooperative risks than in scale alliance. So as to elude cooperative risks, partners are inclined to choose contractual structure for complementary competitive strategic alliance.Finally, compared with scale competitive competitive strategic alliance, partners in complementary competitive strategic alliance are more careful and conservative with higher sensitivity to cooperative risks. As a result, when choosing alliance structure, they pay more attention to the alliance structure's function of avoiding cooperative risks. In relative terms, partners in scale competitive competitive alliance think highly of structure's function of creating collaboration platform and making use of allliance resouces.