Today's firms form diverse alliance portfolios that are difficult to manage. While transaction costs theory predicts whether managers will internalize certain alliance activities, we do not know how managers respond when considering an entire portfolio of alliances simultaneously. Although alliance portfolio diversity increases overall transaction costs (Goerzen & Beamish, 2005), new theorizing is necessary to predict how managers economize their alliance portfolio's transaction costs. I suggest that managers respond to increasing alliance portfolio diversity by internalizing their related alliances. Specifically, I develop theory that suggests total asset specific investments made for related alliances are greater than the sum of the firm's partner-specific investments. The reason is that managers also make shared asset specific investments when they form related alliances. According to transaction cost theory, higher asset specificity suggests that managers will internalize tasks previously performed by alliance partners. I predict that when managers integrate their related alliances, they realize increased economic performance. I will describe my plan to test these predictions with panel data from 500 firms from 1998-2007. I found weak support for my prediction that increased alliance portfolio diversity will lead to subsequent increases in firm diversity. I found support for the prediction that alliance portfolio diversity leads to increases in alliance portfolio integration, and for the prediction that managers will decrease their portfolio's representation of their related alliances after integration. I did not find support for the prediction that related alliance integration increases performance. Implications for theory and important future research questions are discussed. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Management in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the
degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Fall Semester, 2011. / August 5, 2011. / Alliance portfolios, alliances, Shared asset specificity, transaction cost economics, vertical integration / Includes bibliographical references. / James G. Combs, Professor Directing Dissertation; Larry Giunipero, University Representative; Bruce T. Lamont, Committee Member; Chad Van Iddekinge, Committee Member; R. Michael Holmes, Jr., Committee Member.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_253251 |
| Contributors | Penney, Christopher Robert (authoraut), Combs, James G. (professor directing dissertation), Giunipero, Larry (university representative), Lamont, Bruce T. (committee member), Van Iddekinge, Chad (committee member), Holmes, R. Michael (committee member), Department of Management (degree granting department), Florida State University (degree granting institution) |
| Publisher | Florida State University, Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, text |
| Format | 1 online resource, computer, application/pdf |
| Rights | This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s). The copyright in theses and dissertations completed at Florida State University is held by the students who author them. |
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