Value Effects of Strategic Partnerships Between Emerging and Developed Markets Firms

Global economy is entering into a Knowledge Economy state, where Intellectual Capital would become a new important capability of firms’ value creation. However, literature suggests that there is also another type of resource, which leverages performance and accumulation of intellectual and financial resources - Social Capital, which is even more important in Emerging Market informal institutional context. Importance of this kind of resource is documented by the recent rise in the number of strategic partnerships between firms globally. However, implications of this trend for strategic financial management and, namely, for firm value based management are currently largely unrecognized. We propose a comprehensive approach to valuation of partner network impact on firm value by first, valuing this network asset with the help of social network analysis methods, and then - by studying its direct and indirect dynamic effects on firm’s value. Our sample consists of participants of strategic partnerships organized in Emerging Markets from 1986 to 2016. We find an evidence of positive value-creation from firm’s larger number of networks to other firms, as well as from cooperative proposition development and operations management. On the other hand, we find a value-destructive effect of cooperative innovation and document no evidence of value-effect of financial capital-seeking collaboration.