Pushing a bi-national strategic alliance rope up a hill: An empirical assessment of how competing objectives can affect the actual outcome of a strategic alliance.

摘要

A qualitative historical case study of a recently established military strategic alliance, the Canada and United States Bi-national Planning Group (BPG), suggests that the actual outcome of a collaborative arrangement could end up being quite different from the stated/mandated goals and objectives, if there exits within the initiative a less obvious "hidden hand" top-level objective. Through application of a mixed methods approach, I was able to demonstrate how competing objectives could simultaneously exist within a strategic alliance, with the hidden one being the main driving force and purpose behind why and how a collaborative arrangement happened. Content analysis of the data revealed that the main determinate of success within a strategic alliance might not be the production of products per the obvious stated objectives, but rather the attainment of a less obvious higher-level geopolitical/geo-strategic goal. It is also argued that the existence of two competing objectives (one obvious and one hidden) within an alliance may directly affect a number of key activities such as team building, risk management, strategic planning, and large-scale change management. In addition, the existence of a hidden hand top-level objective can seriously jeopardize the building of trust within a strategic alliance and can lead to the emergence of confusion on what the goals, objectives, and desired end state really is. Ultimately, the task of making clear this less obvious top-level objective falls on the shoulders of the senior business leadership, because they are responsible for ensuring that trust building is not jeopardized, that the alliance does not end up struggling to perform, and that an atmosphere of confusion does not manifest itself (either internal or external to the organization). Finally, I offer implications for practice and future research. These projects could include the inclusion of Mexico into the currently established strategic alliance, and the development of a robust performance measurement tool.