Noushi Rahman

Strategic Alliance Longevity: Theory and Evidence Noushi Rahman

Strategic Alliance Longevity Alliance longevity is an important concept because of its relevance to alliance performance. Since partnering firms are more likely to continue with a better performing alliance than a poorly performing one, scholars have treated alliance longevity as a reflector of alliance performance. However, accelerated goal accomplishment may result in early termination of an alliance. The subtle complexities of alliance longevity have not been extensively studied in the literature. A review of the pertinent literatures on transaction cost economics and dynamic capabilities yields five antecedent factors: alliance type, hierarchy of alliance structure, alliance experience with partner, asymmetry-adjusted alliance experience, and number of partners with alliance unit. Tobit and Cox regression techniques were used to empirically investigate the main and moderating effects of these factors on alliance longevity. Ordered logit was used to analyze the last two hypotheses predicting hierarchy of alliance structure. The theoretical development of the research model and the empirical results advance the current state of knowledge on alliance longevity.