(Press-News.org) BUFFALO, N.Y. -- When partnering with larger companies, startups with a small number of carefully chosen alliances will reap the most benefits, according to new research from the University at Buffalo School of Management.
Forthcoming in Organization Science, the study found that by aligning with established companies, a young firm gains valuable access to additional resources and markets. However, as a startup adds more outside partners, eventually the firm's internal capability will weaken and the cost of maintaining its alliances will exceed any remaining benefits.
"Partnerships offer many mutual benefits; established companies can tap into a startup's cutting-edge technologies and innovative potential, while young firms acquire knowledge and status from experienced partners," says study co-author Ramin Vandaie, PhD, assistant professor of operations management and strategy in the UB School of Management.
"But more is not necessarily better," he adds. "We found the benefits of alliances with larger companies do not increase proportionally with the number of partners, but instead start to level off and turn negative as more partnerships are formed."
A downloadable photo of Vandaie is available here: http://www.buffalo.edu/news/releases/2014/10/038.html.
The study examined 150 independent film production studios and tracked their partnerships with major studios and performance from 1990 to 2010. Vandaie says the data can be applied to many industries, particularly creative fields like publishing or advertising, as well as professional services like accounting or law firms.
In addition, the research revealed that highly specialized firms experience greater benefits from interfirm alliances than more generalist competitors.
For example, in its early years, the Weinstein Co. focused on a limited number of genres that were distributed through deals with major studios. With that strategy, the company found and sustained critical and commercial success and has since grown into a "mini-major" that produces and distributes a wide range of films.
"Small, specialized firms that have the opportunity to align with larger firms should put their expansion plans on hold to gain the full benefits of those partnerships," Vandaie recommends. "Later, they can use their newly developed capabilities as a basis for growth and a more reliable path to expansion."
INFORMATION:
Vandaie collaborated on the project with Akbar Zaheer, PhD, professor and Curtis L. Carlson Chair in Strategic Management in the University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management.
The UB School of Management is recognized for its emphasis on real-world learning, community and economic impact, and the global perspective of its faculty, students and alumni. The school also has been ranked by Bloomberg Businessweek, the Financial Times, Forbes and U.S. News & World Report for the quality of its programs and the return on investment it provides its graduates. For more information about the UB School of Management, visit mgt.buffalo.edu.
NOAA's GOES-East satellite has been keeping an eye on the remnants of Tropical Depression 9.
On Oct. 24 at 14:30 UTC (10:30 a.m. EDT) GOES-East captured a visible image of clouds and thunderstorms associated with former Tropical Depression 9,, centered over the southeastern Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico, Belize, and the adjacent northwestern Caribbean Sea.
NOAA's National Hurricane Center (NHC) noted that surface pressures were rising in the area, and the re-development of the former depression is unlikely. The remnants are expected to continue moving east over the ...
Endurance athletes taking part in triathlons are at risk of the potentially life-threatening condition of swimming-induced pulmonary oedema. Cardiologists from Musgrove Park Hospital, Taunton, writing in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, say the condition, which causes an excess collection of watery fluid in the lungs, is likely to become more common with the increase in participation in endurance sports. Increasing numbers of cases are being reported in community triathletes and army trainees. Episodes are more likely to occur in highly fit individuals undertaking ...
A survey published this year found that over 50% of final year veterinary students in the UK do not feel confident either in discussing orodental problems with clients or in performing a detailed examination of the oral cavity of their small animal patients.1 Once in practice, things don't always improve and, anecdotally, it seems many vets dread feline dental procedures.
UK-based practitioners, Rachel Perry and Elise Robertson, who themselves felt woefully ill-prepared for feline dentistry as new graduates, have joined forces in an initiative to plug this educational ...
The Ebola epidemic is continuing to spread, particularly in West Africa. According to the latest report by the World Health Organisation (WHO) dated 17 October, 9,216 cases of Ebola have been recorded and 4,555 people have died of the virus.
With the current situation of the Ebola epidemic, it quickly became necessary for French research to be mobilised rapidly.
In August 2014, the French Minister of Health and Secretary of State for Higher Education and Research made Aviesan responsible for preparing and organising the response of French research to infectious emergencies. ...
A collaboration between researchers at the Universities of Leicester and Innsbruck has developed a completely new way of forming charged molecules which offers tremendous potential for new areas of chemical research.
Professor Andrew Ellis from our Department of Chemistry has been working for several years with colleagues at the Institute of Ion Physics in Austria on exploring the chemistry of molecules inside liquid helium. The team's latest and most startling discovery is that helium atoms can acquire an excess negative charge which enables them to become aggressive ...
The critically endangered Saimaa ringed seal, which inhabits Lake Saimaa in Finland, has extremely low genetic diversity and this development seems to continue, according to a recent study completed at the University of Eastern Finland. In her doctoral dissertation, Mia Valtonen, MSc, analysed the temporal and regional variation in the genetic diversity of the endangered Saimaa ringed seal. The population is only around 300 individuals divided into smaller sub-populations and with very little migration among between them.
The study developed a method allowing the identification ...
BUFFALO, N.Y. — A new study is helping to rewrite Ebola's family history.
The research shows that filoviruses — a family to which Ebola and its similarly lethal relative, Marburg, belong — are at least 16-23 million years old.
Filoviruses likely existed in the Miocene Epoch, and at that time, the evolutionary lines leading to Ebola and Marburg had already diverged, the study concludes.
The research was published in the journal PeerJ in September. It adds to scientists' developing knowledge about known filoviruses, which experts once believed came ...
Adherent cells, the kind that form the architecture of all multi-cellular organisms, are mechanically engineered with precise forces that allow them to move around and stick to things. Proteins called integrin receptors act like little hands and feet to pull these cells across a surface or to anchor them in place. When groups of these cells are put into a petri dish with a variety of substrates they can sense the differences in the surfaces and they will "crawl" toward the stiffest one they can find.
Now chemists have devised a method using DNA-based tension probes to ...
Tempe, Ariz. (Oct. 23, 2014) - New research findings from a team of prevention scientists at Arizona State University demonstrates that a family-focused intervention program for middle-school Mexican American children leads to fewer drop-out rates and lower rates of alcohol and illegal drug use.
"This is the first randomized prevention trial that we're aware of to show effects on school dropout for this population," said Nancy Gonzales, Foundation Professor in the REACH Institute and Psychology Department, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Arizona State University. ...
RIVERSIDE, Calif. – Plant breeders have long identified and cultivated disease-resistant varieties. A research team at the University of California, Riverside has now revealed a new molecular mechanism for resistance and susceptibility to a common fungus that causes wilt in susceptible tomato plants.
Study results appeared Oct. 16 in PLOS Pathogens.
Katherine Borkovich, a professor of plant pathology and the chair of the Department of Plant Pathology and Microbiology, and colleagues started with two closely related tomato cultivars: "Moneymaker" is susceptible ...
