Ulrich Wassmer

Alliance Portfolios: A Review and Research Agenda

The engagement of firms in multiple simultaneous strategic alliances with different partners has become a ubiquitous phenomenon in today’s business landscape. This article offers a review of the extant alliance portfolio literature and organizes it around three key research areas: (a) the emergence of alliance portfolios, (b) the configuration of alliance portfolios, and (c) the management of alliance portfolios. The article also highlights existing gaps in the present understanding of alliance portfolios and outlines a research agenda by identifying key research questions and issues in the areas where further research is needed.

Self-Reported Limitations and Future Directions in Scholarly Reports Analysis and Recommendations

The authors content analyzed self-reported limitations and directions for future research in 1,276 articles published between 1982 and 2007 in the Academy of Management Journal, Administrative Science Quarterly, the Journal of Applied Psychology, the Journal of Management, and the Strategic Management Journal. In order of frequency, the majority of self-reported limitations, as well as directions for future research, pertains to threats to internal, external, and construct validity issues, and there is a significant increase in the reporting of these elements over time. Longitudinal analyses revealed that some of these increases varied across management subfields (i.e., business policy and strategy, organizational behavior, organizational theory, and human resource management), indicating unique research contexts within some research domains. Based on the analyses of self-reported limitations and future research directions, the authors offer eight guidelines for authors, reviewers, and editors. These guidelines refer to the need for authors to report limitations and to use a separate section for them and the need for reviewers to list limitations in their evaluations of manuscripts; authors and reviewers should prioritize limitations, and authors should report them in a way that describes their consequences for the interpretation of results. The guidelines for directions for future research focus on positioning them as a starting point for future research endeavors and for the advancement of theoretical issues. The authors also offer recommendations on how to use limitations and future research directions for the training of researchers. It is hoped that the adoption of these proposed guidelines and recommendations will maximize their value so that they can serve as true catalysts for further scientific progress in the field of management.

Value Creation in Alliance Portfolios: The Benefits and Costs of Network Resource Interdependencies

We draw on the resource-based view of the firm and the alliance benefits and costs literature to advance a model of value creation in firms that access network resources through multiple simultaneous strategic alliances with different partners. Our model suggests that value creation on the alliance portfolio level is a function of the benefits created through synergistic combinations of network resources accessed through alliances with different partners and of the costs generated by the substitutability of resource combinations between the focal firm and its alliance partners. We specify the conditions under which firms can leverage their network resources accessed from alliances with different partners to create benefits above and beyond the benefits they create at the level of any individual alliance. We conclude that the value creating potential of network resources should not only be evaluated on the basis of each individual alliance but also from an alliance portfolio perspective.

The Engagement of Firms in Environmental Collaborations Existing Contributions and Future Directions

The engagement of firms in environmental collaborations has become a ubiquitous phenomenon in today’s business landscape. Yet much of the research to date is fragmented across multiple disciplines and lacks a clear framework to support future study. The authors consolidate and synthesize existing contributions into a conceptual map comprised of antecedents, consequences, and contingencies to better understand environmental collaborations. This map offers a perspective on how firms develop strategies, structures, and capabilities to manage and balance environmental and economic performance and increasing demands for environmental sustainability from multiple stakeholders and society. The authors then highlight existing gaps in the extant literature and outline a future research agenda, including key questions and issues needing additional study.

Distributive Justice and Joint Venture Termination: A Social Exchange Perspective

What role does distributive injustice play in joint venture (JV) termination? We define distributive injustice as a deviation from the contractual allocation of JV-related benefits caused by private benefits. Drawing on social exchange theory, we argue that perceptions of distributive injustice severely damage relationship quality and lead to eventual JV termination. We also suggest that, while both economic and justice considerations influence joint venture termination, they have different implications for JV termination mode. Based on a sample of 284 joint ventures formed between 1996 and 2010, we find evidence that distributive injustice increases the likelihood of JV termination in general, and the likelihood of acquisition of the JV by one of the partners, in particular.