Governance Mechanisms of Inter-organizational Relationship: Comparative Analysis of Three Forms of Alliance Governance

抄録

This study aimed to clarify the mechanism by which alliance governance influences alliance performance by classifying the governance forms into equity governance, contractual governance, and relational governance, as well as by analyzing the roles of mediating factors (opportunistic behaviors, conflicting interests, synergy effects, and learning effects) involved in this relationship. Drawing on the perspectives of transaction cost theory, resource-based theory and knowledge-based theory, testable hypotheses were proposed to explain the mechanism, and they were tested using the data collected from a survey on strategic alliances which Japanese manufacturing firms have formed with foreign as well as domestic firms. As a result of the analysis, it was clarified that contractual governance has a positive influence on alliance performance through the control of opportunistic behaviors and conflicting interests; however, the enhancement of synergy effects and learning effects is not significant. On the other hand, relational governance has a significant influence on alliance performance through all of these four mediating factors. It was also shown that equity governance has no influence on alliance performance.