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Learning and Innovation in International Strategic Alliances: An Empirical Test of the Role of Trust and Tacitness
Author(s) -
Nielsen Bo Bernhard,
Nielsen Sabina
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
journal of management studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 4.398
H-Index - 184
eISSN - 1467-6486
pISSN - 0022-2380
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-6486.2009.00840.x
Subject(s) - alliance , business , sample (material) , proposition , test (biology) , organizational learning , social capital , strategic alliance , knowledge management , industrial organization , sociology , computer science , political science , paleontology , social science , philosophy , chemistry , epistemology , chromatography , law , biology
Drawing on knowledge‐based, organizational learning, and social capital perspectives, we propose and test an integrated framework in which knowledge tacitness and trust act as mediating mechanisms in the relationship between partner characteristics and alliance outcomes. We distinguish between learning and innovation outcomes and suggest that while innovation may result from alliance learning, it can also be created by combining separate knowledge bases without learning from each other. We contend that tacitness and trust play differing roles in the pursuit of learning and innovation and test this proposition on a sample of 120 international strategic alliances.