MSA Presentation

COMPETENCE AND INTERPARTNER LEARNING

Presented By:
Ashish Saxena
Divya Suhag
Gurpreet Singh
Ivneet Singh
Manish
Siddharth Sood

A BRIEF ABOUT ARTICLE

Conventional understanding of firms : Portfolio of product market
entities .
Alternate understanding
Portfolio of core competencies and encompassing disciplines .
Example is Hondas expertise in power trains.
Application : products as diverse as automobiles ,motorcycles,
generators and lawnmowers.
Conceiving the firm as a portfolio of core competences rather than
products suggests that inter-firm competition, rather than interproduct, is essentially concerned with acquisition of skills.
Core competences and value creating skills are not distributed
equally among firms.
Purpose of case study
1. To look at the role of international strategic alliances, in effecting a
partial redistribution of skills among partners.
2. Study the difference between acquiring the skills to gain access to
them and actually internalizing them .
3. For the partners , the alliance may not be just a means to access
each others skills( quasi-internalization) , but also a mechanism for
actually acquiring the partners skills( de facto internalization). When
collaborating with a potential competitor , failure to out- learn ones

1. Concern over intent of partner (collaborative vs competitive)

A BRIEF
ABOUT
ARTICLE
2. Concern
for openness
(transparency)

3. Concerns over the firms ability to absorb the skills from the partner
(receptivity)
The second stage of research was conducted to understand the processes and
mechanism. Through which intent, receptivity and transparency impacted
learning outcomes.
Following were the outcomes:
Competitive collaboration
Some partners may regard internalization of scarce skills as the primary benefit
of international collaboration.
When learning is the goal, termination of the agreement cannot be seen as a
failure of the failure.
Asymmetry in learning within a collaboration may result in varying degree of
relative competence outside the collaboration.
Learning and bargaining power
Asymmetry in learning changes bargaining power within the alliance. In extreme
cases, it may lead to unilateral bargain power cornered by one alliance partner at
the cost of other.
The legal and governance structure may have only a minor say in the pattern of
inter-partnership
learning & bargaining power.
A partner that understands a partnership as a means of inter-partnership
learning, bargaining power and competitiveness will tend to be view it as a race
to learn.

A BRIEF ABOUT ARTICLE

Intent as a determinant of learning
The objective of alliance partners may be defined as internalization,
resource concentration or substitution.
Internalization intent will be strongest in the partner which view
competitiveness as competence based, rather than product
based.
For systematic learning to take place, operators must possess an
internalization intent.
Transparency as a determinant of learning
Some firms and some skills may be inherently more transparent
than the others.
Transparency can be influenced through the design of the
organizational interfaces, the structure of joint tasks and the
protectiveness of individuals.
Receptivity as a determinant of learning
Some firms may be inherently more receptive than the others.
Receptivity is a function of the skill and absorptiveness of the
receptors of exposure position and of parallelism in facilities.
The determinants of sustainable learning
Whether the firm eventually becomes able depends on the depth
of learning, amortization in future investment needed to break

OBJECTIVE 1: Assessing Partner Knowledge

1. Where does this Alliance fall in the Value
Chain?
2. What are the strategic objective in forming the
alliance?
3. What are the core competencies of alliance
partners?
4. What contributions can the partner make to the
alliance?
5. What key skills are relevant to our partners
products and markets?

Alliances can be formed to increase

competitiveness.
However, the real reason could well be
knowledge appropriation.

OBJECTIVE 2: What is the Objective of the Alliance? Is it to

gain the Value
or to Create Value?
1. Is our learning objective focused on obtaining
2.
3.
4.
5.

(technical, systematic , strategic) knowledge?

How have key alliance responsibilities been
allocated to the partners? Which partner
controls key managerial responsibilities?
Does the alliance agreement specify
restrictions on our access to the alliance
operations?
Has our partner taken explicit steps to restrict
our access?
restrictions through negotiation or assignment
of managers to the alliance?

Know how, Know what, Know who

How to unwind the restriction - If yes, can
we eliminate these
What is the bottom line score needed for
the alliance to exist or not? The Deal
Clincher!

OBJECTIVE 3: Evaluation of Knowledge (gain) and Ease of

Transfer
1. Where in the alliance does the knowledge
reside?
2. What is the level of trust between parent and
alliance managers?
3. Set the scale to measure the knowledge
sharing/transfer
4. In the alliance, do managers understand the
importance of the learning objectives of
partners?

Defining the type of scale and its

boundaries is the dilemma
Identifying the Knowledge Stewards

OBJECTIVE 4: Alignment of partner and managerial cultures

1. Is there agreement on the strategic rationale
and practices for sustainability
2.
3.

4.
5.

for the alliance? What are the cross

organizational alliance implementation skills
adopted?
In the alliance, do managers understand the
importance of the learning objectives of
partners?
Does the alliance creates a winning
partnership which includes mutual business
opportunities, values driven by executive
commitment and a thought leadership
around future technologies?
How is chaos managed?
Understand When to Terminate the
Relationship

FINDINGS & LEARNING

Collaboration as a transitional stage
Normally alliances are seen as an intermediate level of
integration between arms length contracts and full
ownerships. But where the goal is skill acquisition , it may
be seen by one or more partners as a medium of same.
Capturing value Vs. creating value
There are 2 basic processes in an alliance: value creation
and value appropriation. The former depends on the
efficacy with which the players combine their
complementary skills and resources. The lack of above
leads to appropriation by the leading partner.
The process of collaborative exchange
The permeability of the collaborative membrane
determines the direction and extent of flow of skills &
capabilities among partners. The bargains may be more
implicit and in a series of small gains.
Where internalization is the goal
The longevity and stability of partnership may not be the
right parameter of collaborative success. A long lived

THANK
YOU!!