An analysis of Strategic alliances in UK steel industry

By

Acknowledgement

I would like to sincerely thank my friends, family and colleagues for the endless understanding, guidance and patience, and most importantly, the support and friendship during my studies. The mentorship of these people has been paramount in facilitating me a well-formed experience which has always provided unswerving guide in achieving my goals. They encouraged me to go further with all my projects and helped me groom into an independent thinker and a good student.

It is due to the humble efforts of my leaders and mentors that I have inculcated in me the confidence to develop my own individuality and sufficiency which enables me to perform the tasks with independence. In the course of completing this dissertation, I am also grateful to my co-workers and friends who provided me enough knowledge and entertainment and proved to be helpful in performing the huge research work. Besides this, the consistent guidance and assistance from my colleagues also gave me distinctive opportunities to gain a wider breadth of experience and undertake an extensive research work.

Finally, and most importantly, I extend sincere thanks to my family members, who provided utmost care and all the strength and encouragement. My faith and ambition has become stronger due to the prayers of my family who tolerated my temper and complains with patience. Without this unending support and encouragement, the completion of this enormous research work would not have been possible.

Declaration

I [type your full first names and surname here], declare that the contents of this dissertation/thesis represent my own unaided work, and that the dissertation/thesis has not previously been submitted for academic examination towards any qualification. Furthermore, it represents my own opinions and not necessarily those of the University.

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Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTII

DECLARATIONIII

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION1

Background1

Problem Statement3

Research Objective3

Research Question4

Layout of the Report4

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW6

Strategic Alliances6

Development of Networks8

Reasons for forming Strategic Alliance9

Exploratory and Exploitative Alliances11

Strategic Alliance- Performance13

Alliance process and the creation of trust13

Alliance structure as sources of social capital15

Management and Control in Strategic Alliances18

Valuable Industrial Resources19

Resources and sustainable Competitive advantage21

Concerns Associated with Alliances23

Alliance Experience25

Partner-Specific Alliance Experience26

General Alliance Experience27

Organizational Capabilities29

Management of organizational capabilities30

UK Steel Industry31

Resources in Steel Industry34

Steel Product36

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY37

Research Design37

Research Instrument37

Data Collection Method37

Setting and Participants38

Overview of Qualitative and Quantitative Research Approaches38

Informed Consent39

Confidentiality40

Validity40

Reliability42

Quantitative Data Analysis43

CHAPTER 4: ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION44

Analysis of the Questionnaire44

Basic data of the firm44

Discussion49

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION53

Overview53

Future Research Directions54

Theoretical Implications55

Practical Implications56

REFERENCES59

APPENDIX63



CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

This chapter will provide the background, objectives and the layout of the entire dissertation. It will focus upon the aims, objectives and the research questions that will be studied in the research.

Background

Firms enter strategic alliances in order to minimize costs that stem from coordination difficulties, to acquire know how and other parties resources, and to retain and develop one's own resources by combining with the other partner's resources (Chan et al., 1997). Strategic alliances have become well established organizational forms and a means of strategy implementation in business life (Inkpen, 2001). For example, “More than 20,000 corporate alliances have been formed worldwide over the past two ...