The contingent value of the dedicated alliance function

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 partner from general partnering experience accumulated with all of the firm’s prior partners. We claim that the value creation potential of a dedicated alliance function that instigates standardization, formalization, and centralization of alliance management practices, increases with organizational maturity and with general partnering experience, but at the same time declines with partner-specific experience. Our analysis of 15,069 alliances involving U.S.-based software firms during the period 1990–2001 furnishes support to these conjectures.