Influence of Knowledge Resources on Exploratory and Exploitative International Strategic Alliances: Effects of the Institutional Environment

We develop a framework that explains the role of knowledge resources in the formation of international strategic alliances by multinational corporations. The focus is on the value and uniqueness of knowledge resources and two types of learning international strategic alliances, exploratory and exploitative. Also, we explain how the institutional environment – a host country's property and contractual rights, rule of law and the institutional distance between the countries of the partnering firms – affects the attractiveness of these two forms of alliances.