The Effect of Seeking Resource Diversity on Post-Alliance Innovation Outcomes

Prior research has studied the influence of R&D resource diversity, but such work only examined a single level of resource diversity. Although alliance partners engage in multiple levels of resource diversity to expand their organizational boundary, we have limited knowledge of how to utilize internal and between partners’ R&D resources. Drawing upon the perspectives of the tensions-based view and organizational boundary, we test the effects of three different levels of resource diversities, simultaneously, on post-alliance innovation outcomes. Using a dataset of 320 U.S. publicly traded firms that participated in a strategic alliance and had a patent filing between 1985 and 2010, our results reveal that internal R&D resource diversity, the R&D diversity between partners, and the similarity of industry level negatively effects innovative outcomes. However, both internal R&D resource diversity and similarity of industry level diminish the negative influence of newly acquired R&D resources from partners. We not only contribute to the existing body of work by investigating multiple levels of diversity but also provide insight to practitioners when engaging in such diversities with different levels.