Strategic Orientation and Alliance Portfolio Configuration : The Interdependence of Strategy and Alliance Portfolio Management

Strategic management research is about explaining why some firms continuously outperform others. Recent research has been focusing on the study of alliances as vehicles to boost competitive - or better: collaborative - advantage. Moving beyond the dyadic level, corporate networks have become a very popular field of research. Whereas a lot of research has already been done on costs and benefits of networks, little has been said about the alignment of network configuration (e. g. the mix of strong and weak ties or the quantity and diversity of ties) and strategic orientation. Since different net