Adapting for Success: Resource and Capability Development in Global Strategic Partnerships

Abstract

The growing complexity and pace of the global business environment create challenges for firms in sustaining competitiveness, particularly when relying on strategic partnerships to access complementary resources and capabilities across borders. This thesis investigates how the relationship within strategic partnerships develops, focusing on what resources and capabilities are important for success and how they change over the partnership's lifetime. By incorporating perspectives from the Resource-Based View, Knowledge-Based View, Dynamic Capabilities, and Strategic Partnership literature, the thesis aims to provide insight into assessing the dynamic aspects of strategic partnerships and how firms reconfigure their resources and capabilities to create new dynamic capabilities. Through an abductive research methodology with a single case study, this research examines how strategic partnerships are managed and developed within the cybersecurity industry, using Clavister as the case company. The findings highlight the crucial role of trust-building, commitment, and strategic alignment in shaping the development of resources and capabilities throughout strategic partnerships and how these influence relational depth and adaptability, factors that impact long-term partnership success and capability development. Firms should aim to develop dynamic relational and knowledge-based capabilities and establish structured processes that help enable learning and joint value creation within collaborations.