本研究整理了過去的文獻，以「社會交換理論」為本研究之假設推導基礎，認為重覆性合作夥伴過去合作次數越多將能夠替焦點企業帶來更高的淨利成長率，並且以該理論提出的兩個信任因子「制度化信任」及「情感信任」，歸納出「股權聯盟比例」及「重覆性合作夥伴時間長短」等兩項可能會間接影響重覆性夥伴過去合作次數與焦點公司平均淨利成長率之間關係的調節變數，從中了解何者信任因子對重覆性合作夥伴關係扮演了至關重要的角色。

在衡量各項變數之間的關係時，本研究至SDC資料庫蒐集了1990至2019年間於製藥產業內由至少一位美國夥伴所成立的重覆性合作夥伴關係之案例，並從各個案例中篩選出美國企業作為最終研究樣本，觀察其於焦點聯盟後五年內的平均淨利成長率高低。

由實證分析結果得知，重覆性合作夥伴過去合作次數越多將對焦點公司聯盟後淨利成長率有顯著正向的影響，亦即過去合作次數越高的重覆性合作夥伴案例中將會在焦點聯盟中享有更高的淨利成長率，然而本研究之兩項調節變數均未對自變數與依變數間之關係有顯著的影響，亦即股權聯盟比例及重覆性夥伴合作時間長短並不會對重覆性夥伴過去合作次數與焦點公司聯盟後淨利成長率之間的關係有任何正負向的影響。

Exploring the Relationship between Repeated Partnerships and the Growth Rate of Focal Firm from the Social Exchange Perspective

Author: Nai-Tzu Chen
Advisor: Chiung-Hui Tseng

Institute of International Business, National Cheng Kung University

SUMMARY

The purpose of this thesis is to understand how the different number of cooperation between the repeated partners before focal alliance and the factors of trust will affect the profit growth rate of the focal firm after the focal alliance. This thesis proposes a set of hypotheses based on the Social Exchange Theory and includes the proportion of equity-based alliance and the time of the cooperation between the repeated partners as moderators that represent the factors of trust to test whether they affect the relationship between prior cooperative experience and the profit growth rate of the focal firm after the focal alliance.

This thesis collects the cases of repeated partnerships established by at least one US partner in the pharmaceutical industry from 1990 and 2019. Also, from each case, the US companies are selected as the final sample to observe the net profit growth rate after the focal alliance.

In order to better understanding the concept of repeated partnership so that providing crucial insights to future researchers and managers, this thesis calls for more future research to investigate this important topic.

INTRODUCTION

In a highly competitive environment, more and more companies choose to cooperate with other firms to achieve strategic alliances to accelerate their goals. Cooperate with prior partners is advantageous. In this case, coordination processes are more effective and adaptability and flexibility are greater because of prior cooperate experience. For example, NIKE and POU CHEN have already cooperated for several years so that POU CHEN could response any NIKE requirement at the first time and forms a win-win situation.

According to the Social Exchange Theory, economists often ignore trust and power in economic model assumptions, and exaggerate the impact of opportunistic behavior. So, Many scholars believe that the social exchange theory is a more appropriate theoretical viewpoint to explore repeated partnerships.

This research mainly discusses the relationship between the number of cooperation of repeated partnership and Profit growth rate of focal firm after focal alliance. By knowing the research results, CEO could know how to choose the appropriate alliance partners between old or new partners.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

The development of research hypotheses is based on Social Exchange Theory. These hypotheses are mainly testing the relationship between the number of cooperation of repeated partnership before focal alliance and the profit growth rate of focal firm after focal alliance. Besides, the moderator effect of proportion of equity-based alliance and the time of cooperation of repeated partnership are also consider to test whether they affect the relationship between prior cooperative experience and the profit growth rate of the focal firm after the focal alliance.

This thesis collects the alliance activities cases that are happen in pharmaceutical industry during 1990 to 2019 from SDC database. The alliance event should include at least one US partner. After collect all eligible data, this thesis selects the US partners as the final sample to observe the relationship between the number of cooperation of repeated partnership before focal alliance and net profit growth rate of focal firm after the focal alliance.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The empirical results show that the number of cooperation of repeated partnership has significant positive affect on the net profit growth rate of focal firm after the focal alliance. However, the moderating effects of both the proportion of equity-based alliance and the time of cooperation of repeated partnership are not supported.

CONCLUSION

The research empirical results have some different insights from recent research. Recent research suggest that firm should keep searching for new partners to gain new knowledge so that firm could maintain a better firm performance, but this research finds that if firms try to cooperate with prior partner, they will experience a better net profit growth rate. This result could give some suggestion to CEO whether they should choose the prior partner or not. Choosing to cooperate with prior partner might be the most suitable strategy to confront the turbulent environment. Although the main effect of this research has been supported, this research still have some limitations. First, because of the research condition, we are hard to find the cases of repeated partnership that have already cooperated above three times, so the final number of sample of each group is disparity. This might interfere the final regression results. Secondly, because this research is based on Social Exchange Theory, so our moderators setting would be limited by the theory. Last but not least, although this study attempts to use two variables that could collect secondary data to represent the two trust factors which is different from the prior research, the final empirical results show that the two moderators have no significant impact on the relationship between prior cooperative experience and the profit growth rate of the focal firm after the focal alliance.

Future researchers could try to find another factor to represent trust so that provide the useful explanation of how trust affect the company performance. Besides, in order to collect the data more completely, we also suggest that researchers could find a more appropriate industry that involve more repeated partnership cases or expend the research period.

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