Kyoto University,
Graduate School of Economics
Research Project Center Discussion Paper Series

Trade Offs in Alliance Capabilities:

Case Studies of Pharmaceutical Firms in Japan

Ryuichi Nakamoto

Discussion Paper No. E-09-007

Research Project Center
Graduate School of Economics
Kyoto University
Yoshida-Hommachi, Sakyo-ku
Kyoto City, 606-8501, Japan

March, 2010

Trade Offs in Alliance Capabilities:
Case Studies of Pharmaceutical Firms in Japan

Ryuichi Nakamoto1

Kyoto University

ABSTRACT
Organizational capability is an important factor in sustaining competitive advantage.
As yet, there have been no studies comparing organizational capabilities. This paper
will examine the relationship between two capabilities: alliance partner selection andalliance implementation capabilities.

Field research was conducted to examine theprocess of alliance partner selection and implementation with six pharmaceuticalcompanies in Japan.

This paper focuses on two companies reputed to have highalliance capabilities. One had a reputation for good partner selection, but abelow-average capability for implementation.

The other had the opposite - a

below-average partner selection capability, with strong implementation capabilities.
Based on a series of extensive interviews, it may be posited that there is an inverse
relationship between partner selection and alliance implementation capabilities,
involving a trade off of sorts.

Keywords:
Alliance capability, Partner selection capability, Implementation capability

1Doctoral Student, Graduate School of Economics, Kyoto University, Yoshida-Hommachi,

Sakyo-ku, Kyoto City 606-8501, JAPAN
Email: ryu-nakamo@kdp.biglobe.ne.jp1INTRODUCTION

Nowadays, strategic alliances are common as business practices. However, thegoals of strategic alliances are notoriously difficult to achieve.

The evidence

accordingly reveals that the success rate of strategic alliances is only about fifty percent(Kogut, 1988).

Many alliances are terminated before they reach their goal (Doz &Hamel, 1998 ; Draulans et al., 2003).
Over the years, research studies regarding the practice of strategic alliances havebeen divided into two tracks.

The first group claims that alliance performance isdetermined by the alliance’s preconditions, i.e. research in the field of game theory(Parkhe, 1993), the transaction cost theory (Balakrishnan & Koza, 1993) and theresource-based view (Das & Teng, 2000; Ireland et al., 2002).
In contrast, the second group emphasizes the importance of allianceimplementation.

Examples would be those relying on the inter-organizational learningtheory (Hamel and Doz, 1998; Ingram, 2002), and the social network theory (Gulati,
1995; Lee & Cavusgil, 2006).

In other words, the former perspective values

pre-contract conditions, while the latter perspective values post-contract interaction as asource to achieve a successful alliance outcome.

Thus, there are conflicting

perspectives on the factors which affect alliance performance.
Recently, researchers have come to consider alliance capability as an importantsuccess factor in alliance involvement (Heimeriks & Duysters, 2007; Kale & Singh,
2007; Simonin, 1997). This is because some firms are more successful in alliances
than others. For example, HP, Cisco, and Eli Lilly are good at managing alliances.

In

order to pinpoint the factors which enable alliance goal realization, many scholars have2

been paying attention not only to a particular alliance but also to the firm’s alliancemanagement processes and its alliance capabilities (Draulans et al., 2003).
Strategic alliance is defined as “the development, manufacture, and/or distributionof new products (Zollo et al., 2002). ” Alliance capability refers to a firm’s ability to
manage the alliance process as a whole.

According to this definition, alliancecapability covers both the capability to optimize pre-contract conditions andpost-contract interactions.

Given that a firm is able to select an appropriate partner, it

does not necessarily mean that it can successfully carry out the alliance implementation
process.
The question then lies on the relationship between two capabilities. Previous
studies did not pay attention to the relationship between capabilities.

Most researchers

described primarily the process or routine specific to the focal company.

For example,

Clark & Fujimoto (1991) and Fujimoto (1997) revealed the routines of highperformance automobile firms.

Whereas Hargadon & Sutton (1997) described adesign firm`s innovation capabilities in detail. These studies, however, did not touchon capability comparison. This paper attempts to find out an answer to this question.

THEORY AND HYPOTHESES

Strategic alliance process
The strategic alliance process is divided into five stages (Kale et al., 2002); alliancestrategy, alliance partner selection, negotiation, alliance implementation, and alliancetermination.

While we should note that the attainment of each stage requires different

capabilities (Kale et al., 2002; Simonin, 1997), previous studies did not attempt to3

explain the capabilities necessary to achieve the goal of these alliance processes.
Because they are crucial to the success of a strategic alliance, this study focuses on
the alliance partner selection and implementation stages. The capabilities of alliancepartner selection and alliance implementation will be carefully examined since it isbelieved that the firm must develop partner selection capability during the alliancepartner selection stage and implementation capability in the alliance implementation
stage.

Alliance capability theory
Alliance capability is an important factor in determining alliance performance.
Most researchers agree on the point that the origin of organizational capability isexperience (Hoang & Rothaermel, 2005; Teece et al., 1997).

Researchers inorganizational learning theory (Ingram, 2002), evolutionary economics (Nelson &Winter, 1982), and the resource based view (Ireland et al., 2002) believe that
accumulated experience leads to capability (Shulz, 2002). However, there are various
opinions regarding the meaning of alliance capability and the level of analysis.
In general, alliance capability is defined as the ability to manage the alliance
process as a whole.

Some researchers define alliance capability as a learning

capability of alliance management.

For example, Draulans et al., (2003), Kale et al.,(2002) and Kale & Singh (2007) defined alliance capability as being the mechanisms
and routines that are purposefully designed to accumulate, store, integrate, and diffuse
relevant organizational knowledge about alliance management.

Existing research onorganizational learning has revealed that learning capability basically has positiveeffects on operating capability (Heimeriks & Duysters, 2007; Rothaemel & Deeds,

42006), i.e., a company’s learning capability supports its operating capability.

In thisway, the definition corresponds to a higherorder capability emphasizing theorganizational learning mechanisms, or the viewing of learning capability at ameta-level (Winter, 2003).
Other researchers look at alliance capability at the operating level.

For example,

Simonin (1997) classifies “collaborate know-how” into five parts: collaborative
management

know-how,negotiation

know-how,partner-searchingknow-how,knowledge skills, and existing skills. This definition implies a lower order capability
which emphasizes each organizational operating procedure.

This study follows thelatter definition, viewing alliance capability at the operating level.
The relationship of different levels of organizational capabilities can besummarized as in Figure 1.

The organizational learning capability is referred to as ahigh-order capability, while the more specific operational capabilities such as partner
selection and alliance implementation are classified as lower-order capabilities.
Previous studies dealt with relationships between higher-order capability andlower-order capability, corresponding to the arrow (1) in Figure 1 (eg.
1997).

Fujimoto,

However, no relationships between operational capabilities (illustrated witharrow (2)) were examined.

This paper attempts to study the relationships oforganizational capabilities at the operational level.

5

FIGURE 1: Levels of Organizational Capabilities
Higher-order
Organizational Learning Capability(1)
Lower-order
Partner Selection Capability

Alliance Implementation Capability(2)

Relationship between two capabilities
As mentioned earlier, the alliance capability includes two conflicting perspectives;
the pre- and post- alliance capabilities. It is therefore appropriate to take a closer look
into the relationship between the two operating capabilities.
A firm which is known to be capable of selecting its partner is believed to be able
to select a partner that will have the necessary characteristics to make the alliance work
well.

Parallel to some perspectives like game theory, transaction cost theory and theresource-based view, the success of this kind of alliance is based merely on apre-conditional level of resource complementarities, cultural fits, and level oftransaction costs between the two parties in the partner selection process, and is lessinvolved with how the firm can operate its alliance relationship (Ireland et al., 2002).
Thus, it can be surmised that a firm with a high capability for partner selection will tend
to have a lower capability in alliance implementation.

Proposition 1:

If a firm has high selection capability, its implementation capability

tends to be low.

6

On the other hand, if a firm has high implementation capability, the success of thealliance is usually the result of post-contract activities, and is less dependent on the
pre-contract condition of the alliance partner. According to some perspectives likeorganizational learning (Doz & Hamel, 1998) and the social network perspective(Goerzen, 2007), the success factors of collaboration are the post-contract interactions,such as the inter-organizational routines and development of communication networks
between partners (Dyer & Kale, 2007).

Consequently, it can be assumed that because

good implementation capability makes an alliance work well, a firm with a high level of
implementation capability does not tend to have a high partner selection capability.

Proposition 2: If a firm has high implementation capability, its selection capability tends
to be low.

Keeping in mind the two propositions above, this study will examine therelationship between the alliance partner selection and implementation capabilities
through an empirical analysis.

The following section describes the methodology used

to examine the proposed inverse relationship between the two capabilities (Figure. 1
arrow. (2) ).

METHODOLOGY

The pharmaceutical industry was selected for the empirical study. The logicalexplanation of case selection is described in the following section.
This empirical study is based on an analysis of the data collected through interview

7

surveys.

The surveys were conducted from May 2007 through May 2008.

First, aninterview was conducted with a representative from the Japan Pharmaceutical
Manufacturers Association (JPMA). Next, six out of the 70 JPMA affiliated leading
pharmaceutical firms were selected for further interviews.

The interviews wereconducted with the managers heading the alliances and with other representatives
familiar with the alliance function for each of the selected firms..

The analysis was

based on the data taken from two out of the six firms interviewed,

referred to herein as

Firm A and Firm B.

These firms are markedly

known for their high alliancecapability.
A third party was invited to audit the interviews and take notes at four of theinterviews in order to provide post-interview cross-references to ensure the impartialityof the information.

Research SettingThis study focuses on a drug development alliance.

As used herein, a “drug”

means a prescription pharmaceutical product. Firms form alliances to share the risk ofdrug development as it costs over a billion yen to develop one kind of drug with thechance of a drug still in basic research reaching commercial production being extremely
low at a chance of 1/19817 (JPMA, 2007).
Drug development alliances have long been common in Japan (See Figure 2).
Pharmaceutical firms in Japan depend considerably on drugs which are introduced
through alliances as the evidence shows that 30~60% of sales are from introduced drugs(so-called “In-licensing drugs”).

8

FIGURE 2: Number of development alliances in Japan
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006

SOURCE: Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, 2007

The reason why the pharmaceutical industry was chosen for this study is because
alliance partner selection is thought to be as important as alliance implementation in thisindustry as compared to other industries.

This is because the basic compound of the

drug is decided prior to preclinical trials (JPMA, 2007; Kuwashima, 1999).

Once thepreclinical trails begin, this compound is not allowed to be altered due to the obvious
health risks involved. However, in other industries, the planned design, materials orother components can be modified during any process of the research and development.
This explains why the selection process of an alliance for drug development is just as
important as the implementation process in the pharmaceutical industry. Alliances in
the pharmaceutical industry tend to be formed for each compound (Pisano, 2007). In
other words, comprehensive alliances between firms are rare in the pharmaceuticalindustry and firms search for an alliance partner with each alliance.
The drug development process can be described as follows.

Each drug needs theapproval of the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, which only reviews a drug forsuch approval after the successful completion of its 3-phase clinical tests.

9

After

preclinical development, the drug is then subjected to strict trials to determine its safety
and efficiency.

Phase 1 of the clinical test involves 20-30 healthy volunteers with the

purpose of evaluating drug dosage and safety.

The side effects and the drugs

efficiency are assessed with up to over one hundred patient volunteers in phase 2. Inphase 3 over one hundred patient volunteers are administered the drug and aremonitored to evaluate long term usage.

See figure. 3.

The regularity authorities inother countries such as the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) and the EMEA(European Medicines Agency) also use approximately the same process.

FIGURE 3: Drug Development Process

SOURCE: JPMA, 2007

ALLIANCE CAPABILITY OF PHARMACEUTICAL FIRMS: DATA FINDINGS(1) Partner Selection Capability
The alliance for drug development begins after preclinical development (see figure
3).

According to the interviews, the standard partner selection process can besummarized as shown in figure 4.

10

FIGURE 4: Partner Selection Process

SOURCE: Takaya (1992) and Rogers & Maranas (2005)

In general, officers in the department of licensing or business development takecharge of alliance partner selection. First, a firm conducts searches and compiles aprofile of possible alliance candidates.

This information about candidate compounds

is not disseminated, hence, personal connections among the representatives of each firmplay a key role in collecting such information.

These personal networks are developedby visiting each others’ firms and participating in “the pharmaceutical licensing
association.” Through networks, the firms can access the drug-related information of
their alliance candidates.
When the firm finds a potential candidate, they send an “invitation” to such acandidate.

If a candidate is interested in forming an alliance, the candidate will

provide more drug information after both have established a confidential agreement.
After that, the firm proposing the alliance reviews the information at the unit anddepartment levels, before the board members decide whether to form alliance at the
final selection stage.
The drug profile information is quite important because it is not allowed to bechanged once the clinical test starts.

Firms advance clinical trials with the proposedcompound right after the alliance is formed. However, two thirds of the drugs that go
through clinical trials fail to be commercialized (JPMA, 2007). If a firm can acquire11the drug profile information correctly at a faster pace than other firms, it can speed up
the review process and alliance negotiations.

This proves that capabilities in searchingfor drug information speedily and correctly are critical to the success of a drug
development alliance.
According to the interviews, partner selection capability differs among firms.
According to the interviews, partner selection capability differs among firms.

The fact

that representatives in a particular firm are targeted and are held in high regard by otherfirms is evidence of this.

(2) Alliance Implementation Capability
Kuwashima (1999) points out that drug development capability is a “go or
no-go”decision making capability (hereinafter referred as “go or no-go capability”) andthis capability differs among firms.

In the drug development process, this go or no-go

capability is important as it defines the firm’s ability to decide whether to go on to thenext phase based on the data of each clinical trial.
In the drug development process, once a clinical trial starts, a compound cannot bechanged. When side effects are evident, firms have to discontinue the clinical trial.
This means that the drug development is abandoned.

Firms are not able to makeincremental changes in the structural formula because it is not easy to find a newcompound.

In addition, due to stringent health and safety regulations, incremental

structural changes in the drug formula are prohibited.
If a drug has no prospect of being commercialized, the firms should decide to stop
the drug development as early as possible, because development costs increase rapidly
in the later phases (Kuwashima, 1999).

12

However, it is basically difficult to make a decision as to whether to stop or to go
on to the next phase judging only from available data.

According to the interviews,

there are firms which insist on moving on to the next phase although the clinical data
may indicate safety concerns.

On the other hand, there are also firms which are

reluctant to go on to the next phase even though the risk is rather small.

This provesthat the implementation capability to match the firms’ decision is important.
According to the interviews, each firm reveals a different level of this
implementation capability.

There is evidence that a firm established its alliancemanagement process based on a U. S. firm’s high-performing process and reputation
among other firms.

(3) Comparison of Firm A and Firm B
The analysis was based on two firms: Firm A and Firm B.
Japanese pharmaceutical firms.

Both are large

Based on the data from the interviews, these two firms

were reputed to have higher alliance capabilities than other firms in the industry.
Extensive interviews revealed that Firm A had a high partner selection capability
but a low implementation capability, and Firm B had a high implementation capability
but a low partner selection capability.
Firstly, Firm A is reputed to have high alliance capability, especially alliancepartner selection capability.

Firm A is known to have highly trained representatives

who take charge of partner selection.

They have a vast inter-firm network and are able

to gather drug information quickly. Their operation procedures and skills are shared
among colleagues.

Firm A tries to transform individual know-how into organizational

capability.

13

Also, to review the alliance candidate faster, Firm A established a standard
operating procedure. In this way, it supports the partner selection process as a whole.
In addition, to prevent its capability from being imitated, Firm A does not use a
consulting firm.

However, Firm A does not have higher implementation capability.

Because of its large scale, it has not depended on alliances. Firm A admitted that it isbehind other firms.

It has not established the special position of an alliance manager

and standard operation procedures.
Firm B is reputed to have high alliance capability, especially allianceimplementation capability.
its foreign partner.

Firm B learned alliance implementation management from

The partner is reputed to have high alliance capability.

Firm B establishes similar procedures for its partners.

It sets up dedicatedalliance management functions and established alliance management positions.

Otherfirms have not yet established such procedures. An alliance manager solves conflicts
in drug development.

It has already established alliance implementation capability.

However, Firm B does not have higher partner selection capability.

It depends mainlyon the drug database in order to search alliance candidate information.

As a result,Firm B lacks personal networks for search information.
Although this study used subjective indices to access capability and performance,such as reputation and the firms’ subjective self-evaluations, due to the high level oftransparency in the industry, the conclusion is confirmed.
collateral evidence.

In addition, there is someAccording to the project data from 1980-2008 (Technomic, 2008),

the co-development project failure rate of Firm A was 54% and that of Firm B was 48%.
Also, the number of solo development projects and the co-development of the two firms
is also nearly identical.

Firm B, however, stopped drugs which could have been14

commercialized at an earlier stage.

In particular, 33% of the cancellations ofco-development projects of Firm B are concentrated in the time before phase2, ascompared to only 8 % for Firm A.

Therefore, Firm B distinguishes a promising drug

(co-development alliance) and a hopeless drug at an earlier stage, in other words, it isbetter at managing alliance implementation.

DISCUSSION

Firm A has high partner selection capability, but is lower than average in
implementation capability and Firm B is vice versa.
Let us consider the reasons for these capabilities’ trade off.

In drug development,

if a firm selects good drugs, data from clinical trials tends to be easier to interpret andjudge.

It restrains conflicts of interpretation between allied firms.

Thus, a firm may

not make efforts to establish implementation capability because they can possibly reachan agreement goal with the alliance partner. On the other hand, if a firm selects a more
subtle drug, the data from clinical trials tends to be difficult to understand.

In thissituation, a firm has to make efforts to accumulate implementation capability to be able
to make good “go or no-go” decisions.
This paper concludes that the findings support two propositions.

CONCLUSION

This paper begins with the introduction of related literature on alliance capability
and alliance management.

It then presents an actual empirical case of pharmaceutical15

firms in Japan, to investigate the relationship of two alliance capabilities known to be
crucial to alliance management.
This study reveals the relationship between partner selection and implementation
capabilities in a strategic alliance. The results suggest a trade off in the relationshipbetween the two capabilities.

The findings support the propositions that when acompany has a high level of partner selection capability, it tends to have a lower ability
to manage the alliance activities, and vice versa.
The findings of this paper can be applied to other kinds of organizational
capabilities.

For example, organizational learning theory suggests there are threephases in organizational memory (Huber, 1991); Acquisition, Storage and Retrieval.
The storage phase must constrain the retrieval phase.
The findings also give an insight into an evolutionary perspective, i.e. there is apotential that one capability can be possibly substituted by another capability.

In thisvein, one capability may possibly harm another capability in the process of institutional
evolution (Nelson & Winter, 1982).
prompts future research.

However, the limitation of this conclusion

First, the unit of analysis for this paper is the firm-level;

however, to look more into the detailed relationship between these capabilities, it isnecessary to further conduct an analysis at the individual alliance level. Also, further
in-depth quantitative research can possibly provide a more concrete conclusion to thestudy.
Also, to expound upon this trade off, many other factors must be taken into account.
For example, the type of drug being developed, potential for success, research anddevelopment cost, clinical trial length and perceived benefits to society.
Finally, this finding has deep managerial implications.

16

A firm should decidewhether to invest in potential conflicting capabilities.

The trade off in capabilities may

also be prevalent among other capabilities. More research needs to be conducted inthis matter with a view to establishing optimum capabilities in all areas.

Acknowledgment:
First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Professor Naoki Wakabayashi.
I am also grateful for all of the comments and suggestions from the professors of Kyoto
University, namely, Associate Professor Yasuo Sugiyama, Associate Professor Takashi Hikino,Professor Koichiro Hioki, Associate Professor Asli M. Colpan, and Professor Akira Takeishi.
Moreover, Professor Susumu Ogawa, Professor Tsuyoshi Numagami, Professor Toyohiro
Kono and other participants of the 2008 AAOS conference offered me a lot of insightfulcomments.

Also, at The 6th Asia Academy of Management, Professor James R. Lincoln andother participants provided me with much perspicacious input.
My gratitude is extended to many participants in this case study.

Although the limited

space provided and my promise to keep all information confidential does not permit me to thankthem individually, their kind help deeply touches my heart.
I also have had the support and encouragement of Dr. Mutarika Pruksapong. Without her
support, I could never have written this paper in English.

And I am also indebted to Dr. Lee

Walton, who assists me in translating and always inspires me to think laterally.

In addition,

daily discussions with my peers, Hiroki Noguchi and Shunsuke Hazui have been illuminating.
However, all mistakes in this paper are my own and mine alone.

17

REFERENCES

Balakrishnan, S. & Koza, M.P. (1993) “Information asymmetry, adverse selection, andjoint ventures,” Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 20: 99--117.
Clark, K.B., & Fujimoto, T. (1991) Product development performance: Strategy,organization, and management in the world auto industry. Harvard Business School
Press. Boston, M.A.
Doz, Y.L. & Hamel, G. (1998) Alliance advantage: The art of creating value throughpartnering. Harvard Business School Press. Boston, M.A.
Draulans, J., deMan, A. & Volberda, H.W. (2003) “Building alliance capability:
Management techniques for superior alliance performance,” Long Range Planning
36: 151--166.
Dyer, J. & Kale, P. (2007) “Relational capabilities: drivers and implications,” in E.
Helfat et al. (eds.) Dynamic capabilites: understanding strategic change inorganizations. Blackwell publishing. Oxford, U.K., pp.345--367.
Das, T.K. & Teng, B. (2000) “A resource-based theory of strategic alliances,” Journal ofManagement 26: 31--61.
Fujimoto, T. (1997) Seisan shisutemu no shinkaron (The evolution theory of production
systems). Yuhikaku. Tokyo, Japan.
Goerzen, A. (2007) “Alliance networks and firm performance: The impact of repeatedpartnerships,” Strategic Management Journal 28: 487--509.
Gulati, R. (1995) “Social structure and alliance formation patterns: A longitudinal
analysis,” Administrative Science Quarterly 40: 619--652.
Hargadon, A. & Sutton, R.A. (1997) “Technology brokering and innovation in a product18

development firm,” Administrative Science Quarterly 42: 716--749.
Huber, G. P. (1991) “Organizational learning: The contributing processes and theliterature,” Organization Science 2: 88--115.
Heimeriks, K. H. & Duysters, G. (2007) “Alliance capability as a mediator between
experience and alliance performance: An empirical investigation into the alliancecapability development process,” Journal of Management Studies 44: 25--49.
Hoang, H. and Rothaemel, F. T. (2005) “The effect of general and partner-specificalliance experience on joint R&D project performance,” Academy of Management
Journal 48: 332--345.
Ingram, P. (2002) “Interorganizational learning,” in J. A. C. Baum (eds.) The blackwellcompanion to organizations. Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, U.K., pp.642--663.
Ireland, R. D., Hitt, M. A. & Vaidynnath, D. (2002) “Alliance management as a sourceof competitive advantage,” Journal of Management 28: 413--466.
JPMA, (2007) Tekisutobukku seiyakusangyo 2008 (A textbook of pharmaceuticalindustry 2008). JPMA. Tokyo, Japan.
Kale, P., Dyer, J. H. & Singh, H. (2002) “Alliance capability, stock market response,
and long-term alliance success: The role of the alliance function,” Strategic
Management Journal 23: 747--767.
Kale, P., & Singh, H. (2007) “Building firm capabilities through learning: The role of
the alliance learning process in alliance capability and firm-level alliance success,”
Strategic Management Journal 28: 981--1000.
Kogut, B. (1998) “Joint ventures: Theoretical and empirical perspectives,” Strategic
Management Journal 9: 319--332.
Kuwashima, K. (1999) “Iyakuhin no kenkyūkaihatsupurosesu ni okeru soshikinōryoku

19

(Organizational capability in R&D process of drug),” Soshikikagaku (Organization
Science) Hakutō Shobō. Tokyo, Japan.
Lee, Y., & Cavusgil, S. T. (2006) “Enhancing alliance performance: The effects ofcontractual-based versus relational-based governance,” Journal of Business Research
59: 896--905.
Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare Website: http://www.mhlw.go.jp/
Nelson, R., & Winter, S. (1982) An evolutionary theory of economic change. Belknap
Press of Harvard University Press. Cambridge, M.A.
Parkhe, A. (1993) “Strategic alliance structuring: A game theoretic and transaction cost
examination of interfirm cooperation,” Academy of Management Journal 36:
794--829.
Pisano, G. (2007) Science business: The promise, the reality and the future of biotech.
Harvard Business School Press. Boston, M.A.
Rogers, M. J., & Maranas, C. D. (2005) “Valuation and design of pharmaceutical R&D
licensing deals,” AIChE Journal 51: 198--209.
Rothaermel, F. T., & Deeds, D. L. (2006) “Alliance type, alliance experience andalliance management capability in high-technology ventures,” Journal of Business
Venturing 21: 429--460.
Shulz, M. (2002) “Organizational learning,” in J. A. C. Baum (eds.) The Blackwellcompanion to organizations. Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, U.K., pp.415--441.
Simonin, B. L. (1997) “The importance of collaborative know-how: An empirical test of
the learning organization,” Academy of Management Journal 40: 1150--1174.
Takaya, T. (1992) Iyakuhinsangyo ni okeru teikei no kenkyū (A study of alliance inJapanese pharmaceutical industry). Master thesis submitted at Keio University

20

Business School.
Technomic (2008) Ashita no shinyaku: Shinyaku kaihatsu keika ichiran (Theforthcoming new drugs: the list of new drug development project). Techonomic,
Tokyo, Japan.
Teece, D. J., Pisano G., & Shuen A. (1997) “Dynamic capabilities and strategic
management,” Strategic Management Journal 18: 509--533.
Winter S. G. (2003) “Understanding dynamic capabilities,” Strategic Management
Journal 24: 991--995.
Zollo, M., Reuer, J., & Singh, H. (2002) “Interorganizational routines and performancein strategic alliances,” Organization Science 13: 701--713.

21