We study the role of alliance governance in the behavior of partners in alliances with different degrees of competition. Using data from a lab experiment on 1,009 alliances and 31,662 partners' choices, we explore whether and how alliances succeed in different competitive scenarios, contingent on the use of formal governance mechanisms (termination clauses) and the number of partners in the alliance. We find that trust, an informal governance mechanism, emerges as a complement to formal governance in order to establish success in our experimental alliances, especially when competition is high. In particular, we document the significance of “trust-building” in initial stages and “trust repair” in later stages of our experimental alliances.

我们研究了联盟治理在不同竞争程度的联盟中合作伙伴行为中的作用。我们使用来自 1,009 个联盟和 31,662 个合作伙伴选择的实验室实验数据，探讨联盟是否以及如何在不同的竞争场景中取得成功，具体取决于正式治理机制（终止条款）的使用和联盟中合作伙伴的数量。我们发现，信任是一种非正式治理机制，可以作为正式治理的补充，以在我们的实验联盟中取得成功，尤其是在竞争激烈的情况下。特别是，我们记录了在我们实验联盟的初始阶段“建立信任”和“信任修复”的重要性。