Routine regulation as a source for managing conflict within alliances: an integrative framework

Alliance partners must address goal conflicts to improve performance. Structural solutions to conflict emphasize alliance governance mechanisms like contracts, authority, and control structures, overlooking the role of individual actors and thus limiting our understanding of how alliance participants manage conflict. To address this, we introduce the concept of routine regulation and use the Fiat–Tata alliance to illustrate our insights and explore the microfoundations of organizational conflict through a process perspective, focusing on what participants actually do to balance goal conflicts.