Analyzing external environmental, strategic alliance, and strategic alliance of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia firms – an empirical research

Purpose - This study investigates the effect of strategic internal critical factors on strategic alliance performance in an emerging market, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Design/methodology/approach - Multivariate statistical analysis technique Partial Least Square-Squared Equation Model is used for data analysis considering a survey of 260 alliance managers. Findings - Environmental complexity moderates the relationship between strategic internal critical factors and strategic performance. A significant positive effect of strategic internal critical factors on corporation strategic performance was found. It suggests that environment and strategic alliance enable alliance managers and decision-makers to translate alliance strategies and improve the overall organization’s performance outcome, productivity, efficiency, availability of a product and profitability. Practical implications - The findings disseminate beneficial implications for alliance managers regarding how they can best use their capability to maximize alliance performance. Realizing the antecedents of strategic alliance performance allows a manager to be sensitive about the influent factors and try to improve the alliance performance. Originality/value - This paper shows how to create associations between interfirm coordination as a framework of new ventures for implementing radical technological change, firm performance in the post-innovation period, industry and firm innovative output.