Competition Or Cooperation? Learning Strategies Mechanism Between The Channel Members Of The League Of Study

Both competition and collaboration exist in channel alliances.The past researches emphasized much on how to enhance the collaborate level of inter-organization learning process.However,the fact is the asymmetric diffusion of the information in the learning alliances.It is necessary to study on both collaborative and competitive strategy.Most of the prior researches paid much emphasize on the absorptive capacity,whereas overlooked the possible influence by the motivation. From the perspectives of both motivation and capacity,our study establishes the influence mechanism of organizational learning strategy in channel alliances.Based on the empirical study,we explained the antecedents,outcomes and moderating effects of the competitive and collaborative learning strategy.Based on the analysis of the 188 manufacturers' sample,we established the influence mechanism of the inter-organization learning strategy.The results indicate that:(1) Absorptive motivation positively influences the competitive strategy,while absorptive ability positively influences both strategies and indirectly influences both strategies by moderating effect;(2) Transformative ability not only positively influences the collaborative strategy,but also moderate the relationship between the transformative motivation and strategy;(3) However,it cannot be proved that collaborate learning strategy must lead to superior organization performance.Most of the channel alliances in the real business world are not power equal. Next,we tested the power distance's moderating effect on the learning strategy selection and performance.The results indicate that:(1) the channel alliances with less power distance choose competitive learning strategy will lead to superior economic performance,(2) the channel alliances with less power distance choose collaborative learning strategy will lead to superior social performance,and(3) the channel alliances with more power distance choose competitive learning strategy will lead to superior social performance.Finally,we summarized the results of the study.The competitive and collaborative learning strategies are not totally opposite.Actually,competition and collaboration always co-exist in real business world.The certain learning strategy selection is influenced by the motivation and capacity.The impact of absorptive motivation on the competitive learning strategy is especially significant,while the collaborative learning strategy is mainly drive by the capacity factors.Enhancing the absorptive capacity and transformative capacity will not only directly influence the learning strategy selection,but also indirectly influence the learning strategy selection by the moderating effect on the relationship between motivation and strategy.Thus to enhance capacity would be more efficient.Particularly,it implies that enhancing the transformative capacity will be one of the important paths to improve collaborative strategy.In certain cases,competitive learning strategy will also lead to good return.For example,the weaker part of the unequal alliances could win the initiative action by more active learning.Besides,the moderating effect of the power distance on the relationship between learning strategy and performance,has further illustrated the essential of the competitive learning strategy and collaborative learning strategy. Based on the fact that the more power distance will weaken the relationship between learning strategy and organizational performance,we figured that there are two paths to improve the use of the strategy.On one hand,the channel member with relatively advantage should reinforce the perceived fairness in order to shorten the perceived power distance between members.On the other hand,the channel member with relatively less advantage should try the best to shorten the real power distance.