Trust , Knowledge Similarity and Cooperation in Coopetitive Strategic Alliances

Cooperative relationships between rival firms, which engage in interfirm strategic alliances, assume active transfer, reception and recombination of competencies and co-production of novel knowledge. These processes facilitate joint technological development and improve the participating firms’ competitiveness. Nevertheless, competitive interactions between the partners can impede the achievement of the alliance’s cooperative objectives. This paper investigates the impact of trusting attitudes developed between the partners on the effectiveness of interfirm collaboration under conditions of competitive rivalry in the broader industrial environment and similarity of initial knowledge at the partners’ disposal. It offers a number of hypotheses, which determine the interrelationships between the levels of interfirm trust, transaction costs associated with transferring knowledge and the successful attainment of alliance goals. The paper pays specific attention to the effects arising from the commonality of knowledge possessed by cooperating rivals. It also analyzes the influence of particular types of coopetitive strategic alliances on the success of collaborative arrangements under the conditions of knowledge commonality among the partners.