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Various issues have been pointed out as potential problems for the
strategies of mergers and acquisitions. Hitt et al. (2001) specifically identified seven pitfalls to watch for: integration difficulties, inadequate evaluation of target firms, large or extraordinary debt, inability to achieve synergy, overdiversification, excessive focus on acquisitions by management, and oversized corporations. The high-profile restructur- ing efforts of AOL Time Warner and AT&T illustrate some of these post-M&A challenges.
STRATEGIC NETWORKS AND ALLIANCES
Media industries are among the top sectors for seeking out strategic alli- ances or network relationships with other firms. This alliance or net- work orientation might be attributed to media content’s public-goods nature, the media industries’ need to be responsive to audience prefer- ences and technological changes, and the symbiotic connection between media distribution and content (Chan-Olmsted, 2006). For the rest of the chapter, the term strategic networks is used to denote various cooper- ative agreements, including strategic alliances.
What Is a Strategic Network?
Strategic networks may be defined as the “stable inter-organizational relationships that are strategically important to participating firms” (Amit & Zott, 2001, p. 498). These ties may take the form of joint ven- tures, alliances, and even long-term buyer–supplier partnerships (Amit & Zott, 2001). Specifically, alliances can also take a variety of forms such as joint firms, minority equity alliances, joint production, joint marketing and promotion, enhanced supplier partnerships, distribu- tion agreements, and licensing agreements (Yoshino & Rangan, 1995). Furthermore, an alliance can be examined by its structure—equity alli- ances, which involve the creation of new entities or ownership transfer of existing entities, and nonequity alliances, which do not (Das & Teng, 2000; Gulati, 1995). Finally, equity alliances involve equity joint firms and minority equity alliances, whereas nonequity alliances refer to all other cooperative arrangements that do not involve equity exchange and can be grouped into either unilateral or bilateral contract-based alli- ances (Mowery, Oxley, & Silverman, 1998).
Why Create a Strategic Network?
Firms might seek out such interorganizational partnerships to gain access to information, resources, and restricted markets; reduce costs and share risks; improve competitive position (e.g., competition re- duction and leadership maintenance); generate scale and scope econo- mies; share knowledge and facilitate learning; develop industry standards; align resources for large-scale projects; and increase speed in product development or market entry (Bailey & Shan, 1995; Gulati, Nohria, & Zaheer, 2000; Hitt et al., 2001; Kale, Singh, & Perlmutter, 2000; Stuart, 2000; J. R. Williams, 1992, 1998). For instance, in media industries, an alliance with a movie studio would provide its partner the critical access to “content” resources; an equity joint venture would allow a media firm to enter a new country or market that has ownership quota regulations for its media products. Parise and Henderson (2001) further suggested that technological advances also tend to induce strategic alliances as firms strive to acquire technology complementarity, reduce the time span for innovation, lessen uncer- tainty in terms of emerging technologies, and assist firms to position themselves where there is a convergence of several industry segments. The technological driver is especially applicable in the context of an emerging digital media marketplace.
Theoretically, transaction cost economics provides the principal ra- tionale for explaining strategic network formation and development (Ramanathan, Seth, & Thomas, 1997), though various theories such as agency theory, game theory, RBV, social exchange theory, power-de- pendence theory, and organizational learning have also been applied to explain the factors influencing the formation and dynamics of strategic networks (Das & Teng, 2000; Robson, Leonidou, & Katsikeas, 2002). The RBV approach of analyzing strategic alliances seems to be especially fruitful in explicating the choice of certain alliance strategies. For in- stance, linking strategic alliance formats to RBV, Das and Teng argued that the types of resources contributed by the alliance partners are the key determinants of the structural preference in an alliance. Das and Teng proposed that a firm will prefer an equity joint firm if it primarily contributes property-based resources, and its partner primarily con- tributes knowledge-based resources; a firm will prefer a minority eq- uity alliance if it primarily contributes knowledge-based resources, and its partner primarily contributes property-based resources; a firm will prefer a bilateral contract-based alliance if both partner firms primarily contribute knowledge-based resources; and a firm will prefer a unilat- eral contract-based alliance if both partner firms primarily contribute property-based resources. In essence, RBV scholars suggest that firms seek partners that have resources complementary to their own and alli- ances that allow them to acquire new capabilities (Eisenhardt & Schoonhoven, 1996; H. M. Harrison, Hoskisson, & Ireland, 2001). The RBV has been applied in some empirical studies of media markets (Chan-Olmsted, 1998; D. Miller & Shamsie, 1996). Chan-Olmsted used the RBV framework to study the strategic alliances of broadcasting, ca- ble television, and telephone services in the telecommunication indus- try. Miller and Shamsie applied the RBV approach to study the property-based and knowledge-based resources’ role in determining the U.S. film studios’ performance in two different environments, one uncertain and one predictable.