Division of Research Working Paper Abstract

99-008

DO FIRMS LEARN TO CREATE VALUE? THE CASE OF ALLIANCES

Bharat Anand and Tarun Khanna

We investigate whether firms learn to manage inter-firm alliances as experience accumulates. This is in contrast to existing studies on firm learning which have typically focused on cost reductions in the production process. The ubiquity of alliances and practitioner reports of heterogeneity in "alliance capability" suggest that this is an issue that has both received considerable interest and lends itself to careful empirical analysis.

We use contrast specific experience measures in a dataset of over 2000 joint ventures and licensing agreements, and value creation measures derived from the abnormal returns surrounding alliance announcements. The identification of learning effects from those of unobserved heterogeneity in alliance capabilities among firms is an additional novel feature of the analysis. We find evidence of large learning effects in managing joint ventures, but no such evidence for licensing contracts. The effects of learning on value creation are strongest for research joint ventures, and weakest for marketing joint ventures. These results are consistent with the view that learning effects will be more important in situations characterized by greater contractual ambiguity.

C&S
34 pages