Tag Archives: learning

[6]. Should I stay or should I go now? Integrating the learning and selection views on firms’ successive make-or-ally decisions for product innovation

Louis Mulotte, Charlotte Ren, Pierre Dussauge and Jay Anand. In F. Contractor and J. Reuer (Eds). Frontiers of Strategic Alliance Research. Cambridge University Press. 2019 (pp. 423-436).

Abstract. Previous literature on inter-firm collaborations has documented how firms can learn from their partners with experience and eventually develop adequate capabilities to go it alone. On the other hand, some literature also suggests that firms are less likely to switch from previously successful strategies, so firms with successful collaborative experience may persist with further collaborations. We identify these strands of literature as the “learning” and “selection” views, and develop propositions on the implications of the two alternative views. We conduct preliminary tests of our propositions using data on new product introductions in the aircraft industry. Our theoretical and empirical analyses help in integrating of these seemingly opposing views and allow for the development of theoretical and managerial implications.

[5]. Does experience imply learning?

Jay Anand, Louis Mulotte and Charlotte Ren. Strategic Management Journal. 2016, 37(7): 1395-1412. 

Abstract. Strategic management research traditionally uses experiential learning arguments to explain the existence of a positive relationship between repetition of an activity and superior performance. We propose an alternative interpretation of this relationship in the context of discrete corporate development activities, which are generally self-selected on the basis of superior performance expectations. We argue that firms are likely to choose to repeat successful activities, thereby accumulating high experience with them. To demonstrate this ‘self-selection’ effect, we examine the performance of 437 aircraft projects launched through three introduction modes. We show that the positive performance effect of the firm’s experience with the focal mode vanishes after accounting for experience endogeneity. We suggest that in a general case, experience with corporate development activities may be tinged with both learning as well as selection effects. Therefore, omitting experience endogeneity may lead researchers to draw incorrect conclusions from an “empirically observed” positive experience-performance relationship.

Click here for the paper: Anand-Mulotte-Ren_2016 SMJ