ABSTRACT
A multi-partner alliance enables firms to align multiple sets of complementary resources, often with the aim of creating additional synergies or complying with increasing customer demands. In order to capture the potential synergies that come with a multi-partner alliance, the managers must prevent and control free-riding behaviour by their counterparts. This chapter explores this multi-partner alliance challenge and focuses on the mechanisms that managers can use to deal with it. The alliance development framework is used to present specific managerial guidelines for multi-partner alliances. The main motivation behind multi-partner alliances is to capitalize on resources supplied by multiple partners, with the aim of achieving synergies that can only be realized with multiple partners. There are five mechanisms by which participants can achieve this objective: resource complementarity, task organization, contractual governance, relational governance and orchestrator role. The chapter concludes with a summary and a case illustration.
