Alliance Capabilities: Review and Research Agenda

A significant amount of empirical work has examined the role of alliances in enhancing firms' innovative output and economic performance. Most of this research directly relates organizational and environmental attributes to alliance-related outcomes. However, in recent years, empirical research has begun to recognize the crucial role of alliance capabilities in explaining performance heterogeneities across alliances and across firms engaging in alliances. But no systematic review of the growing body of empirical research on alliance capabilities has been undertaken to help us understand why and how capabilities matter. In our paper, we first review prior empirical research on alliance capabilities, their antecedents, and their outcomes in terms of a framework that distinguishes between (1) three levels of analysis, an individual alliance versus a portfolio versus a dyad; and (2) two stages of the alliance, preformation versus postformation. We then advance the literature through an integrative conceptual framework of alliance capabilities that distinguishes capabilities in terms of their effects on value creation and value capture. Finally, we synthesize the insights from our review and integrative framework to provide methodological suggestions and identify underexplored theoretical themes for future work.