| The problem. International strategic alliances in technology-intensive industries often fail, suggesting that our understanding of strategic alliance success is limited. This study analyzed the implementation of U.S. and Thai strategic alliances by examining (1) the relationships between the perceived success of strategic alliances and their human resource strategies, partner selection, shared control structure, leadership actions and subtle-issues management, and (2) the differences between U.S. and Thai managers' views about the importances of these factors.; Research method. This is a descriptive-correlational research study. A mailed questionnaire collected data from 528 U.S. and Thai firms having international strategic alliances in technology-intensive industries.; Results. Human resource strategies (staffing, training and development, performance appraisal, and compensation and reward) represent effective control mechanisms for the three success measures employed (formation success, management success, and overall success) for U.S. firms.; For Thai firms, staffing and training were found to predict all three success measures, while performance appraisal predicted only formation and overall success. Compensation and reward predicted only formation success.; Conflicts and management difficulties were negatively related to all success measures among Thai managers, but not for U.S. managers. Effective leadership was positively related to success in both groups.; The effectiveness of organizational empowerment, team development, and negotiation skills correlated positively with all success measures for U.S. group. Thai managers did not see team development as an effective contributor to success, and negotiation skills were positively related only to overall success. Partner selection (capability, compatibility, and commitment) and subtle-issues management (payoffs expectation, reciprocity development, and flexibility maintenance) were critical to success among U.S. managers, not Thai managers.; In both U.S. and Thai groups, human resource strategies were established as the best predictor of success followed by shared control structure. Thai managers viewed team development as more important than U.S. managers, and saw the success of strategic alliance formation as less important than U.S. managers. |
