Choice of Strategic Alliances Mode: Empirical Study in North China (ID: 8-031)

摘要

Strategic alliance is an important source for enterprises to achieve competitive advantages, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Based on Transaction Cost Economics (TCE) and Theory of Relational Contract (TRC), this paper focuses on the issue of how to choose appropriate alliance governance mode.First, the authors analyze factors that influence choice of alliance mode, and compare the contribution of TCE and TRC by viewing them as complementary factors. Second, the authors propose several hypotheses basing on the above theoretical analysis of alliances governance. Furthermore, by using samples of small-and-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in North China, the authors empirically test the theoretical hypotheses and find some important factors that influence alliance governance decision-making, such as the complexity of alliance and prior relationship between partners. Finally, the authors give some discussions on the empirical results and propose some suggestion for future research.