This paper investigates governance mechanisms in international technology alliances (ITAs), firm-level innovation capabilities, and performance outcomes in the mobile computing market. This high-tech market is characterized by numerous cross-border strategic technology collaborations between hardware (HW) and software (SW) firms. Anchoring this work in the relational view, transaction cost economics, and the resource-based view, I develop a model and empirically test and validate relationships related to behavioral ITA governance mechanisms, innovation capabilities, and business performance. In the international cross-industry context, the findings explain to what extent complementary technology resources, through a relational governance mechanism, contribute to the innovation capabilities and superior business performance of high-tech firms, providing a competitive advantage. The data which is analyzed using partial least squares (PLS) path modeling, indicates technological commitment is a factor in expediting technology resource exchange in ITAs between HW and SW firms. The findings also show that the multi-dimensional business performance of firms is only influenced by market development capability, and not new product development capability in product innovation. The results are consistent, regardless of controlling for firm size, industry type, partner-specific experience, and alliance duration in the model. Thus, this research offers insights into how heterogeneous HW and SW high-tech firms in the emerging high-velocity market benefit from a relational governance mechanism in ITAs, thereby establishing competitive advantage through firm-level innovation capabilities. It also explains the relationships between firm-level product innovation mechanisms and business performance. Furthermore, this research provides evidence of the methodological usefulness of PLS path modeling in explaining new phenomena in international business, strategic management, and innovation fields.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:549054 |
| Date | January 2012 |
| Creators | Lew, Yong Kyu |
| Contributors | Sinkovics, Rudolf ; Yamin, M |
| Publisher | University of Manchester |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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