Learning and protection of proprietary assets in strategic alliances: building relational capital
研究发现，企业通过构建基于信任和互动的联盟关系资本，并采用整合式冲突管理，可以同时实现从伙伴学习知识和保护自身核心资产的目标。
One of the main reasons that firms participate in alliances is to learn know-how and capabilities from their alliance partners. At the same time firms want to protect themselves from the opportunistic behavior of their partner to retain their own core proprietary assets. Most research has generally viewed the achievement of these objectives as mutually exclusive. In contrast, we provide empirical evidence using large-sample survey data to show that when firms build relational capital in conjunction with an integrative approach to managing conflict, they are able to achieve both objectives simultaneously. Relational capital based on mutual trust and interaction at the individual level between alliance partners creates a basis for learning and know-how transfer across the exchange interface. At the same time, it curbs opportunistic behavior of alliance partners, thus preventing the leakage of critical know-how between them. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.