Search Results (9)

This study explores the dynamics of international strategic learning alliances through the lens of game theory, incorporating complexity and cooperative game theories to develop a model of organizational evolution. Using simulations and network resources, we examine 1200 cases to assess the costs and benefits of inter-organizational cooperation, with a focus on mutual payoffs and strategic decision-making. Our research addresses key gaps in the literature by analyzing how game-theoretic structures impact the success of alliances, providing actionable insights for firms aiming to enhance strategic partnerships. The findings offer valuable guidance for international partners involved in learning alliances, emphasizing the importance of aligning institutional responses with perceived risks and opportunities. By identifying the motivations and success factors behind strategic alliances, organizations can better formulate optimal strategies for collaboration. This paper contributes to the discourse on inter-firm cooperation by highlighting the complexities of strategic learning alliances and offering new perspectives for future research. Full article

This paper integrates a low-carbon tourism supply chain consisting of a low-carbon tourist attraction (LTA) providing a low-carbon service and an online travel agency (OTA) responsible for big data marketing. Consumers may also encounter sudden crisis events that occur in the tourist attraction during their visit, and the occurrence of crisis events can damage the low-carbon goodwill of the tourist attraction to the detriment of the sustainable development of the supply chain. Therefore, this paper aims to investigate how tourism firms can develop dynamic strategies in the pre-crisis environment if they envision the occurrence of a crisis event and how crisis events affect interfirm cooperation. This paper uses stochastic jump processes to portray the dynamic evolution of low-carbon goodwill in the context of crisis events and introduces the methods of the differential game and Bellman’s continuous dynamic programming theory to study the sustainable operations of low-carbon tourism supply chains. Our findings provide important managerial insights for enterprises in the tourism supply chain and suggest that they need to not only become aware of the tourist attraction crisis events, but also, more importantly, they need to adjust their appropriate input strategies based on the degree of anticipation of the crisis. Full article

This paper intends to analyze the role of the chief executive officer’s (CEO) Corporate Social Responsibility Orientation (CSRO) on interfirm cooperation. Interfirm cooperation is central to gaining competitiveness, particularly in international scenarios where firms must deal with uncertain challenges. Nonetheless, the current understanding of its key determinants needs further development. We argue that whereas environmental hostility pushes firms to cooperate for self-interested purposes, CEOs’ CSRO pulls towards cooperation as an end in itself, even more so under hostile conditions where the need for good-willed committed partners is higher. In a sample of 124 internationalized Spanish firms, we found that CEOs’ CSRO alone increases firms’ international interfirm cooperation and that this impact is stronger under hostile international environments. Our findings thus highlight the importance of leading firms in a socially responsible direction to boost their interfirm cooperation levels in international scenarios. Full article

Industry cluster’s agglomeration effects facilitate higher productivity for enterprises located in the industry cluster. This paper examines the agglomeration effects of industry cluster on firm’s innovation performance through studying the network embeddedness of the biopharmaceutical companies using cross-sectional data from 2011 to 2015. Measuring the technological cooperation network with text analysis of the interfirm agreement among core enterprises, we found that betweenness centrality and clustering coefficient have statistically significant and positive effects on enterprise’s ability for technological innovation, while the influence from the constraint of structural holes is negative. Our results suggest that government should allow the leading enterprises to establish professional technology cooperation platforms and provide additional support to promote cooperation among firms. Full article

Industrial symbiosis (IS) is presented as an inter-firm organizational strategy with the aim of social innovation that targets material and energy flow optimization but also structural sustainability. In this paper, we present geographical proximity as the theoretical framework used to analyse industrial symbiosis through a methodology based on System Dynamics and the underpinning use of Causal Loop Diagrams, aiming to identify the main drivers and hindrances that reinforce or regulate the industrial symbiosis’s sustainability. The understanding of industrial symbiosis is embedded in a theoretical framework that conceptualizes industry as a complex ecosystem in which proximity analysis and stakeholder theory are determinant, giving this methodology a comparative advantage over descriptive statistical forecasting, because it is able to integrate social causal rationality when forecasting attractiveness in a region or individual firm’s potential. A successful industrial symbiosis lasts only if it is able to address collective action problems. The stakeholders’ influence then becomes essential to the complex understanding of this institution, because by shaping individual behaviour in a social context, industrial symbiosis provides a degree of coordination and cooperation in order to overcome social dilemmas for actors who cannot achieve their own goals alone. The proposed narrative encourages us to draw up scenarios, integrating variables from different motivational value dimensions: efficiency, resilience, cooperation and proximity in the industrial symbiosis. We use the Dunkirk case study to explain the role of geographical systems analysis, identifying loops that reinforce or regulate the sustainability of industrial symbiosis and identifying three leverage points: “Training, workshop and education programs for managers and directors,” “Industrial symbiosis governance” and “Agreements in waste regulation conflicts.” The social dynamics aims for the consolidation of the network, through stakeholder interaction and explains the local success and failure of every industrial symbiosis through a system dynamics analysis. Full article

The involvement of firms in innovation cooperation with different partners has become a widespread phenomenon in the contemporary business landscape. Our paper provides a review of extant alliance, innovation, open innovation and inter-firm collaboration literature and organizes it based on a conceptual framework featuring three levels of analysis: (a) the dyadic level, (b) the network level, and (c) the location level. The article identifies roadmaps in each of these areas and also highlights existing gaps in the present understanding of innovation cooperation. Thereby, it outlines a research agenda by identifying key research questions and issues in the areas where further research is needed and encouraged. Full article

This paper aims to reveal the relationship between cooperation, trust, and sustainability, and to uncover whether cooperation, trust, and sustainability is nested within collaboration in shipper–shipping company relationships. Structural equation modeling identified that cooperation has a positive effect on trust, which partially mediates the impact of cooperation on sustainability. Sub-constructs of cooperation included transparency, fairness, and mutuality. Fairness is the prime antecedent of trust, and developing fairness can create more effective and high-quality relationships among firms. A fuller theoretical model reveals how inter-firm cooperation may progress to collaboration, and why transparency does not necessarily lead to trust. Full article

In this paper, the spatial dimensions of a transboundary, coopetitive (coopetition: cooperation of rivals) network, established by restaurant owners, are scrutinized empirically by applying advanced toolkits of spatial network analysis (SpNA). The paper emphasizes that the coopetitive network has geographical extensions, and on the other hand, interactions between vertices generate network space. The new type of economic network could thus be analyzed by SpNA to understand the spatial characteristics of a rivals’ network at transboundary level. The paper may be referred to as cutting-edge research, because on one hand, it dissects a new type of economic network (coopetitive networks) and on the other hand, a new method is utilized (SpNA) to study the geographical parameters of inter-firm relationships. This approach emerges as a novel method. As a result, the paper provides significant, fruitful and new findings in both network science and urban economics as well. By employing metrics of SpNA, the main spatial traits of the coopetitive network can be mapped, such as the circumference, spatial structure, diameter, spatial density, spatial small world phenomenon, and global connectivity of the network. The results show that the coopetitive network possesses hub-and spoke spatial framework, in which the hub is localized far from the cluster of players. Moreover, the coopetitive interaction does not require face-to-face nexus, because the focal firm communicates with them via IT devices. The coopetitive activities contribute significantly to the urban economic growth. The main agent (the hub) ought to be supported by the regional development policy at the local and inter-urban geographical scale as well. Full article

Extant literature lacks a systematic framework addressing the mechanisms of the alliance functional process and its impacts on management activities together with performance in delivering Engineering–procurement–construction (EPC) projects. This study quantitatively investigates the cause–effect relationships among these themes by building and validating a conceptual model of contractor–designer alliance in international hydropower EPC projects. With the support of data collected from an industry survey, the results reveal the key design problems, application of contractor–designer alliance, design management level and performance, which form a sound basis for design management emphasis in EPC activities, e.g., sufficiently considering sustainability of hydropower projects by incorporating environmental, social, and economic factors into designs. The path analysis indicates that the contractor–designer alliance can not only improve design performance by enhancing design management, but also directly promote design performance. This research has significant contributions to the body of knowledge by building interdisciplinary linkages between the areas of alliance, design management, and performance, theoretically demonstrating the mechanism of how interfirm cooperation functions to achieve superior design outcomes of hydropower EPC projects. Understanding these causal relationships will be crucial for contractors and designers to optimally allocate their complementary resources for seeking better design solutions in dealing with both technical issues and sustainability factors. Full article