Total Exploitation Orientation in Capability Development: The Cross-case of Google, Ericsson, Microsoft and Nokia

The aim of the research is to cover the important aspects of corporate capability portfolio development – its co-evolution and configuration with an alliance portfolio. Capability portfolio management has received less attention than it deserves, and the co-evolution of capability and alliance portfolios is not looked at together. Here a closer look is taken from the perspective of exploration and exploitation capability portfolios in the context of large global ICT companies as cases in the multiple case study. As a result some prior findings are confirmed, but some contradictions are also found. This research reveals that capability development is a more externally oriented exploitive phenomenon than the extant literature presents. Alliance configuration parameters: tie strength and diversity behaviour is similar in scale to exploration-exploitation and internal-external.