The Impact of Top Management Team Characteristics on Strategic Alliance Formation

• Main Authors: Pei-Hua Yin, 殷沛樺
• Other Authors: Yu-Kai Wang
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2013
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/80519070365250202722

碩士 === 東吳大學 === 企業管理學系 === 101 === Why some firms frequently use strategic alliances to leverage external resources while others are not? Most prior research takes the economic lens and argues that economic needs drive a firm to ally with other organizations. However, the effects of the top management team (TMT) on alliance formation receive little attention, although we know top executives affect strategies and firm performance. Drawing from the upper echelon theory, we propose that the characteristics of TMT play a key role on alliance formation. We further integrate the upper echelon theory into the social network theory and view top executives with past working experience at the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) as at the centrality of social networks in Taiwanese electronic industries. We therefore argue that the ratio of the TMT members with ITRI working experience is positively associated with alliance formation. The empirical results indicate that larger TMT size and higher TMT education level is associated the greater use of strategic alliances. However, we did not find that TMT tenure and past experience with ITRI can trigger alliance formation.