Domestic and International Corporate Entrepreneurship through Alliances

In recent years, international entrepreneurship and international corporate entrepreneurship have attracted great interest. This paper analyzes the effects of asset similarity and complementarity on the decision to use alliances as a means of achieving corporate entrepreneurship. This study reveals that firms with similar assets are more likely to use mergers and acquisitions to achieve corporate entrepreneurship. This is particularly common when these mergers and acquisitions take place between firms from the same country. In contrast, however, firms prefer alliances to achieve international entrepreneurship. In these cases, firms search for partners whose assets are complementary to their own. These findings demonstrate the key role that firms' assets play in choosing alliances as the means of achieving corporate entrepreneurship, especially in an international context. Copyright (C) 2010 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.