Alliance capability as an emerging theme: Past, present, future

Over the past years, a stream of literature has begun to emerge about alliance capability. This literature claims that a main cause for alliance success lies not in the relationship between alliance partners, but in the partners’ individual ability to manage alliances. This chapter reviews the development of this emerging literature, its findings so far, and future directions for research. It shows that empirical research provides support for the hypothesis that alliance capability affects firm performance. However, our understanding of alliance capability is by no means complete, and more fine-grained research is necessary to extend and refine theory.