روش بازارگرایی و ارتباطات در اتحاد راهبردی بین المللی

This article discusses factors affecting the success of international strategic alliances, specifically market orientation and communication methods. The study empirically compares market orientation and methods of communication with strategically allied SMEs (small and medium enterprises) in countries with different cultural values (i.e., United States and Korea). The findings indicate that market orientation and communication methods in an international strategic alliance between US and Korean SMEs have distinct differences. For example, the results show that market orientation and communication methods differ according to the number of foreign partners within an alliance and the duration of an alliance. The article highlights some managerial implications that might occur due to the differences between American and Korean SMEs operating an international strategic alliance.

A strategic alliance is a collaboration between two or more companies wanting to establish and maintain a cooperative relationship due to complementary capabilities based on core competencies and various activities (Thomas and Trevino, 1993). A recent increase in such partnerships between multinational companies is a notable phenomenon, especially in the area of international business (Kim, 2008). Various factors need consideration to deeply understand how partners' characteristics and specific market conditions impact these alliances due to cross-cultural relationships. In particular, communication methods play a key role in providing products and services while accurately identifying the mutual demands and benefits (Mohr and Nevin, 1990); both activities are very important when a strategic alliance merges across countries. The degree to which a company is market oriented impacts the communication within or between firms as well. Such firms that create strategic alliances depend on market information pertaining to present and future customer needs to be successful (Jaworski and Kohli, 2000). For that, a study is necessary to address the questions of how to manage different factors within an international strategic alliance. Despite the importance of market orientation and communication methods, very few strategic alliance studies focus on these issues. Research on international strategic alliances includes both theoretical and empirical studies. However, most empirical studies in this stream of research utilize case studies to examine what factors influence the outcome of a strategic alliance. These studies suggest management implications on creating successful alliances through applying the factors (Brouthers et al., 1995, Douma et al., 2000, Graebner, 2004, Stiles, 1994 and Voss et al., 2006). However one limitation of case studies includes the inability of clearly verify relationship effects between variables. More sophisticated empirical analysis is necessary to provide evidence on how factors can affect such alliances. This article compares and analyzes strategic alliances between small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the US and Korea verifying the differences in their market orientation and communication methods. Some firms favor a strategic alliance as a core alternative in the era of infinite competition (Wiklund and Shepherd, 2009), but such alliances are not an alternative that solves every corporate issue. Many strategic alliances fail due to mismanagement and partner conflicts stemming from corporate culture differences and management's lack of clear understanding regarding such differences. And while a clear understanding makes a difference, the number of strategic partners and the duration of the alliance relationships can also impact international strategic alliances. Problems result from such culture differences between companies, however almost no prior studies present details of possible resolutions of the issues arising from the number of alliance partners or the duration of the alliance. The purpose of this study, then, is to compare market orientation and communication methods in international strategic alliances involving substantial cultural differences based on the number of partners within the alliance and the duration of a strategic alliance. The focus of this study is on non-capital strategic alliances rather than capital alliances because market orientations and communication methods are more important in the former when it comes to overseas market transactions (Kang et al., 2000). Accordingly, the importance of the study is not only to compare factors that affect the outcome of these alliances but also to highlight managerial implications for alliances between companies by going beyond its obvious necessity and effect.