María del Mar Benavides Espinosa

Corporate entrepreneurship through joint venture

One of the characteristics of the entrepreneurial firm is the active search for opportunities without taking into account the resources available to the firm at a given moment. In such cases, certain types of operation, such as a joint venture, may provide a quick solution to the resource needs of the entrepreneurial firm. Moreover, this form of cooperation offers a suitable context for partners to be able to learn specific knowledge pertaining, for example, to the country of origin of the market they are aiming to enter, or to learning particular activities etc. Bearing these two dimensions in mind, the objective of this paper is to analyze the role of the joint venture as a tool for undertaking different activities associated with Corporate Entrepreneurship, that is to say, strategic renewal, Corporate Venturing and innovation. An empirical study using a sample of 74 joint ventures suggests that this particular mode of cooperation is employed by the entrepreneurial firm to carry out some, though not all, of the activities associated with Corporate Entrepreneurship.

The Transmission of Knowledge by Means of Strategic Alliances: An Application in the Hotel Industry

ABSTRACT In this article, we study to what extent strategic alliances, such as joint ventures, are used as a means of transmitting knowledge among service companies, focusing on the hotel industry. And especially, we aim to analyse the advantages and disadvantages that joint ventures imply and measure their degree of utilization in this industry. We feel this to be a relevant topic, as the tourist sector is currently enjoying a boom and the leisure and entertainment fields are undergoing expansion. It is a sector that is learning new concepts and management techniques, and is now interacting with other sectors to extend its range of services and thus satisfy the expectations of increasingly demanding clients in an evermore-globalised world. In this study we have looked at current cases of joint ventures between hotel chains operating in Europe, Asia, and the Americas.