Session 09

Topics

Much of our understanding of strategic alliances among business suppliers, distributors, and joint ventures comes from organization sociologists who have been studying relationships between organizations since the 1960’s. In general, this research began with a resource dependence perspective, arguing that while organizations strive to maintain their autonomy, they must often engage in relationships with others in order to achieve goals that cannot be achieved by organizations independently. In the 1970’s organizational economists, such as Coase, Williamson, and Teece added an efficiency criterion for judging what transactions should be performed within the organization (hierarchy) versus contracted externally in the market or through ”hybrid” forms of interorganizational relationships (see week 6 on forms of organizing). However, as this week’s readings emphasize, entering into an interorganizational relationship is not simply a matter of structuring a contract; legal contracts are significantly altered by informal social-psychological norms and trust among the parties. Going beyond the dyad, an organization’s influence over its environment is significantly affected by the network of relationships in which the organization is embedded.

Required Readings

  • Ring & Van de Ven (1994) "Developmental Processes of Cooperative IORs," AMR, 19; 90-118.

  • Gulati & Gargiulo (1999) "Where do interorganizational networks come from?" AJS, 104, 5: 1439-93.

  • Zaheer & Soda (2009). “Network evolution: The origins of structural holes,” ASQ, 54, 1-31.

  • Burt (2007) “Secondhand brokerage: Evidence on the importance of local structure for managers, bankers and analysts, AMJ, 50: 119-148.

  • Xiao & Tsui (2007) “When brokers may not work: The cultural contingency of social capital..,” ASQ, 52: 1-31

  • Greve, Baum, Mitsuhashi & Owley, (2010), “Built to last but falling apart: Cohesion, friction, and withdrawal from interfirm alliances,” AMJ 53:302-322.

Supplementary Readings on Interorganizational Relationships

  • Allen & Tushman, Boundary spanning

  • Van de Ven & Walker (1984) "The Dynamics of Interorganizational Coordination," ASQ, 29: 598-621.

  • Ring & Van de Ven (1992) "Structuring Cooperative Relations Among Orgs," SMJ, 13: 483-98.

  • Galaskiewicz (1985) "Interorganizational Relationships" Annual Review of Sociology, 11: 281-304.

  • Gulati (1995) "Social Structure and Alliance Formation Patterns: A Longitudinal Analysis," ASQ, 40: 619-652.

  • Shapiro (1987) "The Social Control of Impersonal Trust," AJS, 93, 3: 623-58.

  • Zaheer, McEvily, & Perrone (1998) "Does Trust Matter? Exploring the Effects of Interorganizational and Interpersonal Trust on Performance," OS, 9, 2: 141-159.

  • Special journal issues on "intra- and interorganizational cooperation,” in AMJ (38, 1, 1995), on “trust in and between orgs” in AMR (23, 1998) and in Org. Sci. (14, 2003) and on “managing partnerships and strategic alliances in Org. Sci. (9, 1998).

  • Backmann & Zaheer, eds. (2006), Handbook of Trust Research, U.K. Edward Elgar

  • Lavie & Rosenkopf, (2006), Balancing exploration and exploitation in alliance formation,” AMJ, 49:797-818

  • Faems et al (2008) “Toward an integrative perspective on alliance governance…” AMJ 51:1053-1078.

  • Dirks, Lewicki & Zaheer (2009) Special issue on Repairing relationships in AMR 34.

  • Kim, Dirks, & Cooper, 2009. “The repair of trust: A dynamic bilateral perspective and multilevel conceptualization.” AMR, 34:401-422.

Further Readings on Interorganizational Networks

    • Coleman (1988) “Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital,” AJS, 94: S95-S120

    • Galaskiewicz & Wasserman (1989) “Mimetic Processes Within an Interorganizational Field: An empirical test,” ASQ, 34: 454-479.

    • Knoke (1990) “Organizing for Collective Action: The Political Economies of Associations,” NY: Aldine de Gruyter.

    • Burt (1992) “Structural Holes: The Social Structure of Competition," Cambridge, MA: Harvard U. Press, Chapters 1-3.

    • Lincoln, Gerlach, & Takahashi (1992) "Keiretsu Networks in Japan" ASR, 57, 5.

    • Nohria & Eccles (Eds.) "Networks and Organizations," Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1992.

    • Powell, Koput, & Smith-Dioerr (1996) "Interorganizational Collaboration and the Locus of Innovation: Networks of Learning in Biotechnology," ASQ, 41: 116-145.

    • Stuart (1998) "Network Positions and Propensities to Collaborate…," ASQ, 43: 668-698.

    • Uzzi (1996) “The Sources and Consequences of Embeddedness and Economic Performance of Organizations: The network effect,” ASR, 61: 674-69

    • Reagans & McEvily (2003) “Network Structure and Knowledge Transfer,” ASQ, 48: 240-267.

    • Podolny (2005) “Status signals,” Princeton Univ. Press. pp. 1-21 and 249-266.