Strategic alliance outcomes: consolidation and new directions

The pursuit of outcomes is the raison d'être for strategic alliances, yet the literature on outcomes is rather fragmented. Moreover, conceptual and empirical confusion exists between strategic alliance outcomes and how well the alliance is working. Important behavioral terms, such as conflict and tension, are also used without conceptual clarity. We tackle these issues by consolidating the spectrum of strategic alliance outcomes and explaining how outcomes are often intertwined. We also distill the literature regarding how well the alliance is working into three ‘functioning indicators’ and highlight their conceptual distinctiveness vis-à-vis outcomes. We disentangle definitions and implications of three important behavioral issues in alliances—tradeoffs, frictions, and tensions—and discuss how they are rooted in partner interdependence. Lastly, we offer an ‘outcome-centric’ perspective on strategic alliances, which shifts the emphasis from outcomes as end results to the pursuit of outcomes as explanatory starting points. This perspective offers new opportunities to theorize about the functioning of strategic alliances, behavioral manifestations of partner interdependence, and the pursuit of multiple outcomes in strategic alliances.