Balancing risk and trust for strategic alliance formation decisions

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zachary A. Collier ◽  
Matthew D. Wood ◽  
Dale A. Henderson

PurposeTrust entails the assumption of risk by the trustor to the extent that the trustee may act in a manner unaligned with the trustor's interests. Before a strategic alliance is formed, each firm formulates a subjective assessment regarding whether the other firm will behave in a trustworthy manner and not act opportunistically. To inform this partner analysis and selection process, the authors leverage the concept of value of information to quantify the benefit of information gathering activities on the trustworthiness of a potential trustee.Design/methodology/approachIn this paper, the authors develop a decision model that explicitly operationalizes trust as the subjective probability that a trustee will act in a trustworthy manner. The authors integrate the concept of value of information related to information gathering activities, which would inform a trustor about a trustee's trustworthiness.FindingsTrust inherently involves some degree of risk, and the authors find that there is practical value in carrying out information gathering activities to facilitate the partner analysis process. The authors present a list of trustworthiness indicators, along with a scoring sheet, to facilitate learning more about a potential strategic alliance partner.Originality/valueThe need for a quantitative model that can support risk-based strategic alliance decision-making for partner analysis represents a research gap in the literature. The modeling of strategic alliance partner analysis decisions from a value of information (VOI) perspective adds a contribution to the trust literature.

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zachary A. Collier ◽  
Ujjwal Guin ◽  
Joseph Sarkis ◽  
James H. Lambert

PurposeIn the buyer-supplier relationship of a high-technology enterprise, the concepts of trust and risk are closely intertwined. Entering into a buyer-supplier relationship inherently involves a degree of risk, since there is always an opportunity for one of the parties to act opportunistically. Purchasing and supply managers play an important role in reducing the firm's risk profile, and must make decisions about whether or not to enter into, or remain in, a relationship with a supplier based on a subjective assessment of trust and risk.Design/methodology/approachIn this paper, the authors seek to explore how trust in the buyer-supplier relationship can be quantitatively modeled in the presence of risk. The authors develop a model of trust between a buyer and supplier as a risk-based decision, in which a buyer decides to place trust in a supplier, who may either act cooperatively or opportunistically. The authors use a case study of intellectual property (IP) piracy in the electronics industry to illustrate the conceptual discussion and model development.FindingsThe authors produce a generalizable model that can be used to aid in decision-making and risk analysis for potential supply-chain partnerships, and is both a theoretical and practical innovation. However, the model can benefit a variety of high-technology enterprises.Originality/valueWhile the topic of trust is widely discussed, few studies have attempted to derive a quantitative model to support trust-based decision making. This paper advanced the field of supply chain management by developing a model which relates risk and trust in the buyer-supplier relationship.


Kybernetes ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 44 (10) ◽  
pp. 1504-1522 ◽  
Author(s):  
Soe Tsyr Yuan ◽  
Pei Hung Hsieh ◽  
Yu-Chen Yeh

Purpose – In the service economy era, service value is created from the evaluation of customer experience and it is important to study alliance partner selection for improving service provision. Nevertheless, most of the existing alliance partner selection approaches concentrate on the functional aspects. The purpose of this paper is to provide a novel approach that is customer-centric and emphasizes the emotional aspect of service value. Design/methodology/approach – This paper presents a metaphor-based alliance partner recommendation mechanism (MAPRM) that employs the computing metaphor approach to recommend alliance partners for companies in an innovative way. The main ideas of metaphors are the comparison made between two unlike things that actually have something in common so as to attain innovative thinking. Findings – This study uses the scenario of regional tourism innovation to demonstrate the attempted contributions of MAPRM. The simulation evaluation results show that MAPRM can utilize knowledge and resources from companies to achieve specific alliance goals of satisfying desired customer experiences represented by images that can be analyzed and created based on customers’ feedback and their interactions with companies. Originality/value – MAPRM aims to assist companies to find appropriate alliance partners which offer potential innovation opportunities for service value provision. It is capable of facilitating the alliance partner selection process and assessing customers’ needs at the same time.


2010 ◽  
Vol 110 (6) ◽  
pp. 841-860 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marina Z. Solesvik ◽  
Paul Westhead

PurposeThe purpose of this exploratory study is to examine the partner selection criteria reported by maritime firms in Norway. The study aims to analyze how a maritime firm's competitive advantage can be enhanced by the selection of the right partner with reference to a strategic alliance.Design/methodology/approachA multiple‐case study methodology was used. Archival, survey and interview data were explored relating to the partner selection process reported by Norwegian maritime firms. Primary data were gathered from semi‐structured personal interviews with managers of Norwegian maritime firms.FindingsCase study evidence suggests that the strategic alliances were successful when partners had been carefully selected. As detected elsewhere, successful alliances were associated with partners that had managed to build trustful and honest relationships, had common strategic goals, and partners that supplied resources and competencies. Notably, it was detected that cyclicality in the maritime industry shaped the partner selection process. Trust between partners was used as mechanism to reduce uncertainty relating to the strategic alliance process. Firms seeking long‐term alliances selected partners with substantial capital and financial stability to survive a market's downturn, as well as the resources required for expansion during a recession.Practical implicationsPresented findings have implications for practitioners, especially for managers of shipping firms, banks, shipyards, producers of ship equipment, ship design firms, and ship brokers. Practitioners need to be aware that the rationale for inter‐firm collaboration change over time, and motives are linked to the phase of the maritime cycle. Inter‐firm collaboration provides competitive advantage benefits to firms and collaboration can protect as well as create jobs and can create wealth in maritime communities.Originality/valueA novel conceptual contribution is the exploration of links between maritime industrial cyclicality and the partner selection process relating to strategic alliances. The study also adds to debates relating to the profiles of internationalizing smaller firms.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (15) ◽  
pp. 4065 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chang ◽  
Liou ◽  
Lo

Since the rise of strategic alliances which play such an important role in industry today, the biopharmaceutical industry worldwide has entered an era of rapid change and collaborative thinking. The strategic alliance is one of the most important strategies for the green biopharmaceutical industry. Member organizations in these alliances work together to create more advantageous biotechnologies based on environmental protection to achieve mutual benefits. In the past, there have been only a few studies discussing partner evaluations and the selection process for the green biopharmaceutical industry, so the criteria or indicators are still not complete. Therefore, this study proposes a novel multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) framework for strategic alliance partner evaluation that combines the best-worst method (BWM) and the fuzzy TOPSIS technique based on the concept of aspiration level (called fuzzy TOPSIS-AL) to evaluate the performance and priority rankings of strategic alliance partners. The BWM overcomes the shortcomings of small sample sizes and streamlines the number of conventional pairwise comparisons needed. The fuzzy TOPSIS-AL technique introduces the concept of the aspiration level, thereby leading to more reasonable suggestions for improvement. In addition, data from a multinational green biopharmaceutical company survey are utilized to demonstrate the validity and applicability of the proposed model.


2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 200-212 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann Darwin

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discuss the challenges and obstacles encountered in the implementation of a mentoring program for Master of Business Administration (MBA) students at the University of South Australia (UniSA) Business School. The paper starts with an exploration into the need for a mentoring program, the trial and subsequent four years of implementation. The paper also explores the network model of mentoring and the reasons why this, rather than a more traditional model, was chosen for the program’s implementation. Design/methodology/approach – This exploratory case study uses data from over 600 students and their alumni mentors over a five-year period to evaluate and improve the program as well as cultivating a critical community of adult learners. Findings – Feedback from students indicates that the mentoring program is regarded by most as a value-added feature of their early learning as it offers support, if and when it is required, from those who have been there before. Research limitations/implications – Results are limited to one institution. However, as research into mentoring for higher education students is thin on the ground, this study contributes to our understanding of the positive impacts of mentoring on student success. Practical implications – This paper emphasizes the importance of business leaders giving back to their alma mater through mentoring current MBA students. It shows how mentoring can support learning and management development. Originality/value – This is an original study which explores ways to increase the learning of higher education students for positive social outcomes.


2021 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-58
Author(s):  
Domenic Di Francesco ◽  
Marios Chryssanthopoulos ◽  
Michael Havbro Faber ◽  
Ujjwal Bharadwaj

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 376-394 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sonali Bhattacharya ◽  
Netra Neelam

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine how internship value is manifested in the context of a business school. The authors have examined the internship experience in terms of experiential learning and employability. Specifically, the authors investigate the factors that determine internship at four phases: design, conduct, evaluation and feedback. Design/methodology/approach The authors have applied a mixed method approach. In all, 110 students of a busines school were first surveyed on their expectation, motivation and level of preparation through a self-administered questionnaire before internship. Based on the survey result, eight of these students were interviewed in details about internship expectations from industry, the selection process for internship, communications or exchanges between intern and companies prior to internship and perceived industry expectation from interns. At the next phase, authors used a qualitative research approach by conducting semi-structured, in-depth interviews with 14 interns and their mentors after internship period. They were interviewed on design, conduct, evaluation and feedback process of the internship. Interviews tried capture what kind of leader-member exchange led to satisfactory internship experience and outcome from view of both inter and mentor. Findings The authors find that at various stages of internship program quality of mentor – intern exchanges (as defined by leadership exchange theory), and task characteristics as indicated by autonomy, task variety, task significance and performance feedback determine intern’s performance. An intern’s performance is antecedent to an intern’s and a mentor’s satisfaction and overall internship value. The authors also found that intrinsic capability of intern such as critical thinking ability and learning orientation result in enhanced value of internship experience. The proposed models, postulate that at designing stage, lower the level of communication from employers, higher the feeling of ambiguity and lower the perceived internship value in terms of experiential learning and perceived employability. Feeling of ambiguity is moderated by existence of prior work experience of interns. At conduction stage, mentor-intern exchange is directly related to flexibility in structure of the program and inversely related to dependency on peer learning. Mentor-intern exchange also related to mentor and intern’s learning value. However, the learning value is moderated by learning orientation of the intern. Originality/value The authors have tried the summer internship experience from the perspective of interns and mentors. This is the uniqueness of the research.


2015 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 174-198 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefania Veltri ◽  
Andrea Venturelli ◽  
Giovanni Mastroleo

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose a method to measure intellectual capital (IC) in firms involved in strategic alliances, an area that has received scant attention in the literature, as existing research is focused mainly on organizational level mainly and increasingly on macro-level unit such as regions or nations. There are very few works at the meso-level (i.e. alliances, clusters), and the paper aims to fill this void, by providing researchers and practitioners with a tool capable of combining measurement and management aims, developed at organizational level with the active participation of the researchers. Design/methodology/approach – The method of analysis is based on a model formalized through a fuzzy expert system (FES). The FES are able to merge the capabilities of an expert system to simulate the decision-making process with the vagueness typical of human reasoning, maintaining the ability to still have a numeric value as a response. Its construction requires the participation of experts, whose knowledge of the problem is accumulated in the form of blocks of rules. These features make it possible to formalize the decision-making process related to the IC valuation, handling qualitative and quantitative variables, and exploring the cognitive mechanisms underlying this process. Findings – The outcome of the application is a system designed to measure the intangible performance deriving from participation in a strategic alliance using FES. This study contributes to the broadening of the research community’s understanding regarding the alternative measurement of IC created within strategic alliances. Research limitations/implications – To the best of the authors’ knowledge, IC literature lacks methods expressly designed to measure the incremental value of IC originating from collaboration among firms. From a measurement perspective, the results may be regarded as valuable proof that IC performance within strategic alliances can be measured quantitatively. Practical implications – On the management side, the possibility of retracing the determinants of different IC intermediate indicators composing the final IC index allows strategic alliances managers to use this information for decision-making purposes. Originality/value – To the best of the authors’ knowledge this is the first study applying FES to measure IC in a firm belonging to a strategic alliance. In the authors’ opinion, fuzzy logic methodology, recently applied in empirical work designed to evaluate IC, represents a reliable methodology because of the “fuzzy” nature of IC.


2017 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 310-325 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francois Pilon ◽  
Elias Hadjielias

Purpose This study aims to explore the dynamics enabling strategic account management (SAM) to function as a value co-creation selling model in the pharmaceutical industry. Design/methodology/approach Using an inductive qualitative research design, data are collected within 11 industry customers in Canada. This work focuses on hospitals as strategic accounts of pharmaceutical companies, exploring SAM value co-creation in the “hospital-pharmaceutical company” relationship. Findings The findings suggest the presence of two key dimensions that can enable a value co-creation SAM model in the hospital-pharmaceutical relationship: “customer-tailored value-added initiatives” and “relationship enhancers”. Customer-tailored value-added initiatives explain the activities that are central to the hospital-pharmaceutical company relationship and can lead to the provision of value added that is unique to the hospital. Relationship enhancers explain the activities that can help strengthen hospital-pharmaceutical company relations in the pursuit of enhanced value-added interactions between the two parties. The research demonstrates a cyclical relationship between “customer-tailored value-added initiatives” and “relationship enhancers”, leading to value co-creation through a SAM model. Practical implications The study informs pharmaceutical industry practitioners on how to improve their value proposition through new, more sustainable selling practices. It offers information on implementing a value co-creation SAM model, which can enable pharmaceutical companies to sustain long-lasting value-added relationships with key accounts such as hospitals. Originality/value The study contributes to the field of SAM by conceptualizing SAM as a value co-creation system. It introduces new knowledge in pharmaceutical marketing by offering empirical insight on the applicability and use of SAM in the hospital-pharmaceutical company dyad.


Sensor Review ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 78-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
Srdjan Jovic ◽  
Obrad Anicic ◽  
Milivoje Jovanovic

Purpose Acoustic emission (AE) could be used for prevention and detection of tool errors in Computer Numerical Control (CNC) machining. The purpose of this study is to analyze the AE form of CNC machining operations. Design/methodology/approach Experimental measurements were performed with three sensors on the CNC lathe to collect the data of the CNC machining. Adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) was applied for the fusion from the sensors’ signals to determine the strength of the signal periodic component among the sensors. Findings There were three inputs, namely, spindle speed, feed rate and depth of cut. ANFIS was also used to determine the inputs’ influence on the prediction of strength of the signal periodic component. Variable selection process was used to select the most dominant factors which affect the prediction of strength of the signal periodic component. Originality/value Results were shown that the spindle speed has the most dominant effect on the strength of the signal periodic component.


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