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Exploration, exploitation, and firm age in alliance portfolios

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Abstract

We analyzed the relationship between exploration-oriented and exploration-oriented alliances. Through the complementarity approach, three possible relationships were analyzed: complementarity, substitutability, and no relationship. We use Technological Innovation Panel data for Spanish manufacturing firms for 2005–2013. The econometric technique that we used to estimate the coefficients was population-averaged OLS. Our findings suggest that alliance portfolios formed by exploration-oriented and exploration-oriented alliances achieve worse innovation performance than specialized exploration or exploitation portfolios. In addition, we found that a single class of alliance has different impacts on innovation performance depending on whether it is implemented by a young company or a mature company.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Financial Economics and Accounting, University of Extremadura, Av. de la Universidad s/n, 10071, Cáceres, Spain

    Manuel Guisado-González & José Luis Coca-Pérez

  2. Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Vigo, 36310, Vigo, Spain

    Jennifer González-Blanco

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  1. Manuel Guisado-González
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Correspondence to Manuel Guisado-González.

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Guisado-González, M., González-Blanco, J. & Coca-Pérez, J.L. Exploration, exploitation, and firm age in alliance portfolios. Eurasian Bus Rev 9, 387–406 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40821-019-00131-y

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