Strategic Alliances in the Digital Printing Industry

• The fast technological development and the convergence of the media industry have made competition in theprinting industry harder and not only in-industry any longer. This puts great pressure on individualcompanies, and in a climate of rapid change, companies need to respond quickly to external forces in order toremain competitive. To accomplish this many different competitive resources and competences need to bemanaged. This can be achieved either directly by ownership or indirectly by cooperation. This qualitative casestudy sets out to investigate how alliances are used in the dynamic business environment of the printingindustry, with a focus on cooperation in connection with digital printing.The primary reason, for the companies’ cooperation was gaining access to resources to enhance customersatisfaction and retain customer contact. This paper illustrates that alliances and cooperations can be used indifferent ways and being part of an alliance can be regarded as successful and something worth nurturing.Even though alliances can provide competitive advantages, this study also indicates that hypercompetitivebehavior, like being to opportunistic, clearly can have drastic negative effects on an alliance.

Subject headings

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Maskinteknik -- Annan maskinteknik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Mechanical Engineering -- Other Mechanical Engineering (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Media and Communications (hsv//eng)

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Materialteknik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Materials Engineering (hsv//eng)

Keyword

strategic alliances

hypercompetition

digital printing

Industrial organisation, administration and economics

Industriell organisation, administration och ekonomi

Media and communication studies

Medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap

Materials science

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kon (subject category)