Question

What will be the Ideal Research Design when testing if a country's economy has an impact on the success of the strategic alliance?

Answer 1

A research design is the set of methods and procedures used in collecting and analysing measures of the variables specified in the research problem research. The design of a study defines the study type (descriptive, correlation, semi-experimental, experimental, review, meta-analytic) and sub-type (e.g., descriptive-longitudinal case study), research problem, hypotheses, independent and dependent variables, experimental design, and, if applicable, data collection methods and a statistical analysis plan. Research design is the framework that has been created to find answers to research questions.

This study analyses whether a firm’s innovative nature affects its selection of a new alliance partner. The selection of an appropriate partner is a crucially important first step in the design of a successful strategic alliance. We argue that innovative firms focus on particular criteria in the selection of new partners – namely, complementarity of resources, absorptive capacity, innovative capabilities and willingness to share expertise. Data to empirically analyze the research hypotheses are collected from a survey of 51 Dutch firms operating in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector. We control for characteristics of the focal organization, the alliance and the entrepreneur. The exploratory results provide support for our key proposition.

Cooperative development : this is a cooperative, trustworthy development based on shared vision and common goals. Continuous improvement takes place with this type of relationship.

Successful : success is measured against pre-agreed Key Performance Indicators quite different from conventional financials. The measures to gauge success are wide and varied, reflecting the broad outcomes of the relationship.

Long-term : five years is generally the minimum term, but the term becomes less relevant as the partnering relationship develops. The relationship is based on the spirit of the law not the letter of the law. This does not mean that there is no documentation in place; good partnering will have the entire current and future requirement in place, alongside other information needs for the management and development of the relationship.