International alliances as drivers of corporate entrepreneurship

Abstract

Today, the global competition is increasing more than ever. It is necessary for firms to engage in international alliances to sustain competitive advantage on the global market. When firms engage in alliances they get the availability to share each other’s resources. In addition, firms form international alliances when their resources are complementary to each other. When firms have resources that complement each other, it is easier to achieve corporate entrepreneurship. Corporate entrepreneurship is a beneficial method for a firm to renew and revitalize itself and improve its performance. The gap addressed in this study is which resource characteristics in international alliances stimulate corporate entrepreneurship. Hence, this is the purpose of this research. The investigation in the research paper is based on literature on related research fields.

The research approach that is used is a combination of a deductive and abductive approach. Further, a qualitative research method, two interviews, is used. The first interview was with PwC, a face-to-face interview, and the second interview was with Ericsson, a telephone interview. This study investigates alliances the companies are and have been engaged in. As a conclusion of this research not all resource characteristics stimulated corporate entrepreneurship as we expected. However, some resource characteristics proved to be stimulating corporate entrepreneurship, which were not expected.

The analysis and conclusion may be of value both theoretically and practically. Theoretically, the gap in the research field is filled. Practically, it helps the firms to know how to consider their resources.