ery, Oxley, & Silverman, 1998; Rouse & Daellenbach, 1999; Tyler & Steensma, 1995, 1998; Varadarajan & Cunningham, 1995). Focusing exclusively on the resource-based view of strategic alliances, Eisenhardt and Schoonhoven (1996) found essentially that alliances are more likely to be formed when bot h firms are in vulnerable strategic positions (i.e., in need of resources) or when they are in strong social positions (i.e., possess valuable resources to share). Other researchers have tackled only selected aspects of alliances, such as organizational knowledge (Kogut, 1988) and international business (Blodgett, 1991; Lyles & Salk, 1997). Thus, a general resource-based theory of strategic alliances has yet to emerge. Our purpose here is to develop a more encompassing resource-based theory of strategic alliances than is available in the extant literature.We divide the article into four parts. First, we examine the rationale for entering into strategic alliances from a resource perspective, as compared with a transaction-cost perspective. We then identify the resource characteristics of individual firms that are the antecedents of alliance formation. Third, we discuss structural preferences for alliances, as determined by the resource types of partner firms. Finally, we develop a typology of inter-partner resource alignments and explore the effects of these resource alignments on alliance performance. The four parts of the article set out the four essential components of a resource-based theory of strategic alliances: rationale, formation, structure, and performance. These four components are integral to a general theory of alliances, because they have been the main focus of alliance research. What has been lacking in the literature thus far is the fact that none of these aspects has been adequately examined from the resource-based perspective. Taken together , the four aspects contribute toward a comprehensive and integrated theory of strategi...
