Rogue and Deviants: A Game-Theoretic Perspective on Opportunism in Strategic Alliance Relationships

Opportunistic behavior is often studied in interfirm relationships, yet we don’t know the different types of behavior that are hidden behind the general opportunism label. Therefore, using game theory as guidance, this dissertation examines the roots of and influences on two types of opportunistic behaviors in strategic alliances. Specifically, the author suggests that the strategic alliances literature would benefit from recognizing that opportunistic behaviors don’t always originate from the firm (rogue-firm opportunism), but instead often originate from individual alliance employees (deviant-personal opportunism). Moreover, this dissertation examines how relational factors between two alliance partners impact these two types of opportunistic behaviors. The relational factors considered in this dissertation are trust, monitoring, and relative alliance identity.

Hypotheses presented in this dissertation are tested across two studies. The first study utilizes a behavioral business simulation. It combines survey data collection with objective performance data obtained from the simulation. The second study investigates the hypothesized relationships in a cross-sectional sample of strategic alliance executives. It primarily replies on survey data collection, but also introduces secondary data from SDC Platinum database.