Partners’ efforts to manage risk extend far beyond decisions made when an alliance is formed and continue throughout its lifecycle. As an alliance matures, it is expected that partners will adapt controls to address unanticipated, emergent risks; however, empirical evidence indicates that such changes are relatively rare. This study aims to advance our understanding of the constraints on control adaptation by examining the role of governance inseparability, a condition in which partners’ prior control choices limit the range and types of subsequent strategic control options. Using a longitudinal analysis of two mature alliances, we examine episodes where partners struggled to switch from or differentiate alliance controls compromised by emergent risks. We trace these constraints to a range of sources, including contractual commitments, alliance-specific regulation, and control consistency. Furthermore, we observe how partners introduced ‘compensatory controls’, that is, additional controls to remedy secondary control problems created by the existing control infrastructure.

合作伙伴管理风险的努力远远超出了联盟形成时做出的决定，并在整个生命周期中持续进行。随着联盟的成熟，预计合作伙伴将调整控制措施以应对意料之外的紧急风险；然而，经验证据表明这种变化相对较少。本研究旨在通过检查治理不可分离性的作用来促进我们对控制适应约束的理解，在这种情况下，合作伙伴先前的控制选择限制了后续战略控制选择的范围和类型。通过对两个成熟联盟的纵向分析，我们研究了合作伙伴难以转变或区分因突发风险而受到损害的联盟控制的事件。我们将这些限制追溯到一系列来源，包括合同承诺、联盟特定的监管和控制一致性。此外，我们观察了合作伙伴如何引入“补偿性控制”，即额外的控制来弥补现有控制基础设施造成的二次控制问题。