Firms form marketing and technology alliances to access other firms’ resources,
and these alliances act as signals to investors. Investors use these signals to adjust
expectations about new venture performance prospects, but our understanding of
investor responses is incomplete because limited research examines them as a function
of factors other than the alliance announcements. To better understand alliances as
signals, we must incorporate factors influencing the resources alliances make available.
Thus, my research question is as follows: To what extent do partner firm, focal firm, and
alliance characteristics provide signals to investors about the resources alliances make
accessible? My theory integrates signaling theory and resource-based theory on strategic
alliances, and an event study is used to analyze investor responses to alliances formed by
high technology new ventures recently having undergone initial public offerings.
The findings provide evidence both in support and in contradiction to signaling
theory and resource-based theory on strategic alliances. For example, signaling theory
logic suggests both that the visibility and prestige of large partners and that the uncertainty associated with small and young firms enhance the strength of signals
associated with alliance announcements. In this study, there is no support for the former
hypotheses and limited support for the latter. Moreover, although both perspectives
suggest that the new venture’s alliance experience increases investor responses, such
effects were not found.
There was some evidence to support the signaling theory argument that signal
consistency strengthens responses. Specifically, investors respond favorably to
marketing alliances when the new ventures’ alliance partners have strong commercial
resources (many new products per year). There is also evidence that investors respond to
the possibility of resource complementarity, contingent on which firm has the resources
that complement the alliance. For instance, investors value marketing alliances when
new ventures have strong R&D resources. In technology alliances, investors may
respond more favorably when new ventures have strong commercial resources (high
advertising intensity), but may respond negatively when partners have such resources. In
sum, this study provides some support for signaling theory and resource-based theory on
strategic alliances, but also provides null results that are inconsistent with either.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/ETD-TAMU-3204 |
| Date | 15 May 2009 |
| Creators | Holmes Jr, Robert Michael |
| Contributors | Hitt, Michael A., Ireland, R. Duane |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Book, Thesis, Electronic Dissertation, text |
| Format | electronic, application/pdf, born digital |
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