Dovev Lavie

Università commerciale Luigi Bocconi | Bocconi · Department of Management and Technology

We advance research on the managerial antecedents of exploration by studying personal, organizational, and environmental conditions under which a CEO’s risk propensity shapes a firm’s tendency to explore in product development. Our panel data analysis of 219 firms in the prepackaged software industry reveals that, when a CEO is risk-prone, the CEO’...

Research Summary How does an acquisition initiated by a firm's alliance partner affect the value that the firm can create and capture from its alliance with that partner? We conjecture that the similarity between the businesses of the firm and its partner's acquisition target restricts the firm's ability to create and capture value from its allianc...

Research on misconduct suggests that accusations against industry peers generate negative consequences for non-accused firms (a “stigma effect”). Yet, building on research on competitive dynamics, we infer that such accusations can benefit non-accused firms that compete with these peers (a “competition effect”). To reconcile these opposing perspect...

Management research has alluded to organizational and environmental conditions that drive firms’ tendencies to explore versus exploit. We complement this research by developing theory on vicarious learning to explain how a firm adjusts its own exploration level based on the exploration levels of its alliance partners and competitors. Using panel da...

Frontiers of Strategic Alliance Research - edited by Farok J. Contractor March 2019

Scholars have underscored the merits of a dedicated alliance function that promotes standardization, formalization, and centralization of alliance management practices, but some recent research finds no support for the claim that a dedicated alliance function creates value. We contribute to this debate by offering a contingency approach. Specifical...

Research streams on competition and cooperation are central to the field of strategic management but have evolved independently. The emerging literature on coopetition has brought attention to the phenomenon of simultaneous competition and cooperation, yet the interplay between the two has remained under‐researched. We offer a roadmap for studying...

Despite the popularity of 10.1057/978-1-137-00772-8_274, many 10.1057/978-1-137-00772-8_606 underperform. Performance variation is partially attributed to inter-firm differences in alliance capability. A firm with extensive partnering experience and a dedicated alliance organization can develop alliance capability to effectively initiate, develop a...

James G. March has published his seminal work ‘Exploration and Exploitation in Organizational Learning’ in 1991. We revisit March’s article and analyze the impact it has had on scholarly thinking, providing a comprehensive and structured review of the extensive and diverse research inspired by this publication. Unlike previous reviews on the topic,...

How does the scientific value of innovations vary with the maturity of the knowledge that underlies them? We reconcile conflicting views in the innovation literature by introducing a contingency perspective that underscores the role of knowledge distance along technological and geographical domains. We predict an inverted U-shaped effect of knowled...

In this editorial, we address both the collection and handling of big data and the analytical tools provided by data science for management scholars.

Resource reconfiguration enables firms to adapt in dynamic environments by supplementing, removing, recombining, or redeploying resources. Whereas prior research has underscored the merits of resource reconfi-guration and the modes for implementing it, little is known about the antecedents of this practice. According to prior research, under given...

Despite the popularity of strategic alliances, many alliances underperform. Performance variation is partially attributed to inter-firm differences in alliance capability. A firm with extensive partnering experience and a dedicated alliance organization can develop alliance capability to effectively initiate, develop and maintain collaborative rela...

Prior research has considered various conceptualizations of internationalization and offered diverse perspectives on its performance implications that, in turn, have generated mixed empirical findings. We advance research on the performance implications of internationalization by uncovering the multifaceted nature of internationalization and develo...

Alliance research has underscored the contribution of the dedicated alliance function to value creation in alliances, yet we demonstrate some of its shortcomings and suggest that this contribution is contingent on the nature of the firm’s partnering experience. We distinguish partner-specific experience gained in recurrent alliances with the same p...

Prior research on ambidexterity has limited its concern to balancing exploration and exploitation via particular modes of operation. Acknowledging the interplay of tendencies to explore versus exploit via the internal organization, alliance, and acquisition modes, we claim that balancing these tendencies within each mode undermines firm performance...

This study introduces a behavioral theory of capability development. It suggests that a firm’s efforts to develop its explorative and exploitative capabilities are driven by performance feedback, and subsequently enhance performance. This full feedback loop is tested with a sample of U.S. firms in the electronics industry during 1993-2001. The find...

Alliance research underscores the contribution of partnering experience to value creation in alliances. We distinguish partner-specific experience gained in recurrent alliances with the same partner, from general partnering experience accumulated with all of the firm’s prior partners, demonstrating that the former is more valuable than the latter....

Social network theories have gained prominence in the strategic management literature. Nevertheless, attempts to extend their application to the domain of competition should be questioned given the fundamental differences between cooperative relations and competitive relations. Laying the foundation for competition network theory, this study relate...

In studying the antecedents of alliance performance, one stream of research has underscored the alignment between partners’ characteristics whereas another has concentrated on relational mechanisms such as mutual trust, relational embeddedness, and relational commitment. We integrate these two perspectives by examining how congruence of the partner...

We study how intra-industry product diversity affects firm performance by analyzing the implications of expanding a firm’s product line within its core business. We conjecture that increases in product diversity initially undermine performance because of negative transfer effects but then improve it due to economies of scope. We further theorize th...

How do alliance portfolios evolve? We develop grounded theory based on Unisys’ case, which reveals how exogenous technological changes at the industry level and shifts in a firm's strategy shape the composition of partners and the nature of alliance relationships. We identify four evolutionary processes: responding to external stimuli, breaking off...

A growing body of research suggests that an organization's ties to other organizations furnish resources that bestow various benefits. Scholars have proposed different perspectives on how such networks of ties shape organizational behavior and performance outcomes, but they have paid little attention to the underlying mechanisms driving these effec...

Organizational research advocates that firms balance exploration and exploitation yet acknowledges inherent challenges in reconciling these opposing activities. To overcome these challenges, such research suggests that firms establish organizational separation between exploring and exploiting units or engage in temporal separation whereby they osci...

We study how collaboration and internal resources drive knowledge creation and application in university research programs. Academic collaboration with fellow university scientists drives knowledge creation, whereas collaboration with industry partners drives knowledge application. Nevertheless, contrary to prior research that has underscored the m...

Acknowledging interdependence in firms’ tendencies to explore versus exploit across governance modes, we claim that balancing these tendencies within each mode undermines performance as a result of resource allocation constraints, limits to specialization, and tension between conflicting routines. Nevertheless, by exploring in one mode while exploi...

We extend international strategy research by unbundling distinctive facets of internationalization and explaining the unique causal mechanisms and contingencies underlying their respective performance implications. By discerning the effects of intensity, diversity and distance of internationalization we reconcile inconsistent evidence in prior rese...

Jim March's framework of exploration and exploitation has drawn substantial interest from scholars studying phenomena such as organizational learning, knowledge management, innovation, organizational design, and strategic alliances. This framework has become an essential lens for interpreting various behaviors and outcomes within and across organiz...

Corporate venture capital (CVC) investments serve as interfirm relationships that enable established firms to tap into emerging technology markets. Nevertheless, firms may also leverage their strategic alliances to this end. Does alliance formation reinforce or attenuate a firm's tendency to invest in entrepreneurial ventures? We introduce a resour...

We examine the conditions under which the prior partnering experience of firms contributes to value creation in their new alliances. We propose that prior experience with the same partners, that is, ‘partner-specific experience,’ provides greater benefits than ‘general partnering experience’ that encompasses all prior alliances with any partner. We...

The article presents management science research on how corporations balance exploration and exploitation, defined as their investments in research and development and in commercial production and marketing of their products, in the context of their strategic alliances. It is hypothesized that firms which seek to balance those priorities when manag...

Alliance research has traditionally focused on structural and relational aspects of the networks in which firms are situated, paying less attention to the inherent characteristics of their partners. This study introduces the notion of alliance portfolio internationalization (API), which refers to the degree of foreignness of partners in a firm's co...

Alliance research has traditionally focused on structural and relational aspects of the networks in which firms are situated, paying less attention to the inherent characteristics of their partners. This study introduces the notion of alliance portfolio internationalization (API), which refers to the degree of foreignness of partners in a firm's co...

This study reveals the multifaceted contribution of alliance portfolios to firms' market performance. Extending prior research that has stressed the value-creation effect of network resources, it uncovers how prominent partners may undermine a firm's capacity to appropriate value from its alliance portfolio. Analysis of a comprehensive panel datase...

This study uncovers value creation and appropriation mechanisms in alliance portfolios. It reveals how the value created by network resources varies with their complementarity. The relative bargaining power of partners limits a firm's appropriation capacity, especially when the partners compete in its industry. This capacity improves with competiti...

We examined the distribution of benefits to partners in multipartner alliances by concentrating on dynamics of partner entry and involvement. Testing hypotheses in the Wi-Fi Alliance, we observed heterogeneity of benefits. In particular, the extent of organizational involvement in this alliance enhanced partners' reputation and market success with...

Do firms balance exploration and exploitation in their alliance formation decisions, and if so, why and how? We argue that absorptive capacity and organizational inertia impose conflicting pressures for exploration and exploitation with respect to the value chain function of alliances, the attributes of partners, and partners' network positions. Al...

In recent years, alliances have become even more popular than mergers and acquisitions. Alliance formation has led to the emergence of interconnected firms, which are embedded in alliance networks. This paper offers a theory of network resources to evaluate the competitive advantage of interconnected firms. It distinguishes shared resources from no...

Firms seek to balance exploration and exploitation, yet little is known about the mechanisms driving firms' decisions to pursue these activities. We offer a framework that reconciles the contradictions and mixed evidence in prior research by contrasting the organizational inertia perspective with the organizational slack and absorptive capacity per...

This paper presents a model of capability reconfiguration, which integrates the Schumpeterian perspective on technological discontinuities with the dynamic capabilities literature in order to explain the responses of incumbents to technological change. It identifies substitution, evolution and transformation as three mechanisms of capability reconf...

In light of the increasing popularity of interfirm alliances, the resource-based view is revisited and extended in order to allow for the consideration of network resources in evaluating the competitive advantage of interconnected firms. The proposed model distinguishes shared resources from non-shared resources, identifies new types of rent, and i...

The article studies corporate evolution by performing a longitudinal analysis of Unisys Corporation and its alliance network, using interviews, questionnaires and archival data sources to identify four phases of evolution. The article states that little is known about the evolution of interconnected firms that are embedded in alliance networks. The...

This dissertation focuses on the study of firms that are embedded in networks of alliances. It develops theory and provides evidence that explain how such interconnected firms evolve and how their alliance networks affect their performance. The network configuration framework is advanced, incorporating relational and structural aspects and highligh...

We have extended the theory of Multinational Corporations (MNCs) by focusing on MNCs' strategic positioning in a foreign market relative to their local counterparts. We propose a new typological framework that focuses on the competitive and marketing strategies of both foreign and local counter firms. Israel's growing attractiveness to foreign MNCs...

With the promise of regional peace brought about by political developments in the Middle East in the 1990s, Israeli firms found themselves in a radically changing environment, with multinational corporations (MNCs) making massive inroads into their long-standing domestic monopolies. Firstly, this article demonstrates how foreign MNC positioning has...

The article develops a five-step framework for dealing with the strategic issues of multinationals' entry into foreign markets. First, it assists multinationals in identifying their superior strategic capabilities. Second, it focuses on forming a basis for competitive advantage. Third, it focuses on identifying multinationals' relative marketing po...