Designing Alliance Proactiveness Model Using Grounded Theory

Alliance Proactiveness (AP) is the organization’s innovative response to identify and respond to the strategic alliance opportunities. The present study seeks to conceptualize model of AP by applying grounded theory in order to enable businesses to achieve superior performance over current and potential future competitors and achieve a good competitive advantage with a better understanding of their environment. The study is a qualitative research in terms of typology and is located in the paradigm of interpretiveness, and its orientation is developmental. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 18 university professors, experts and managers of Iranian technology-oriented companies (Hi-Tech) with a history of strategic alliance in their activities, and continued through theoretical sampling and snowball to reach the theoretical saturation point. After analyzing the interviews, 353 open codes were conceptualized in the open coding stage. Then, open coding concepts were classified into 93 sub-categories and 29 main categories in axial and selective coding. Finally, the conceptual model of AP was extracted with the dimensions of causal conditions, pivotal phenomena, strategies and actions, contextual conditions, intervening conditions, and consequences and results. The results of the research can be used as a roadmap for managers in recognizing the factors and obstacles of proactive behaviors in strategic alliances and in introducing various dimensions in strategic areas, contexts and interventions, and provide a correct understanding of its consequences.