Unilateral Commitments and the Importance of Process in Alliances
How the partners in an alliance view their joint venture can have much to do with its success or failure. Do they fear that the other partner will get a larger payoff, while they operate in good faith? Or do they make seemingly counterintuitive unilateral commitments that involve acts of faith by one or both companies? Here the authors present a framework, derived from field interviews and viewed in game theory terms, for securing partners' cooperation, managing an alliance, and ensuring its success.