Unpacking Success and Failure in Inter-Firm Alliances: Evidence from Aotearoa New Zealand

Inter-firm alliances contribute to economic growth and societal progress, but crucial questions remain unaddressed. Firms frequently pursue multiple outcomes from alliances but almost all literature has focused on particular outcomes in isolation (e.g., productivity or emissions reductions), rather than interplays between different outcomes. Moreover, there are valid questions about whether insights derived from large, connected economies are relevant to alliances in smaller or more isolated economies like Aotearoa New Zealand. Our research aims to build knowledge about interplays between outcomes from alliances, and examine alliances between Māori-led firms and non-Māori firms. We will build a novel dataset on the population of interfirm alliances involving New Zealand (NZ) firms, which we will integrate with the Statistics NZ Longitudinal Business Database (LBD). This will make our data available to other researchers and enable us to conduct a careful econometric analysis that exploits the full potential of firm microdata within the LBD. Our project will offer the first systematic analysis of the pursuit of multiple outcomes from alliances and unpack the opportunities, challenges, and outcomes of alliances between Māori-led firms and non-Māori firms.