The effects of internal technological diversity and external uncertainty on technological alliance portfolio diversity

This research proposes internal and external determinants that influence the diversity of a firm’s alliance portfolio. Focusing on technological aspects of the firm as well as investigating internal and external factors, we suggest that the internal technological diversity of the focal firm, as well as the technological uncertainty of the industry, affects the technological diversity of the alliance portfolio. The hypotheses are tested on a sample of U.S.-listed semiconductor firms’ global R&D alliances from 1990 to 2010. We find that the internal technological diversity of a firm has a negative influence on its technological alliance portfolio diversity. However, technological alliance portfolio diversity seems unaffected by the uncertainty of the firm’s environment. This study contributes to prior literature which has extensively studied the effects of alliance portfolio diversity on firm performance but has paid little attention to its determinants.