Alliance cliques have been largely neglected in technological alliances studies. In this study we show that cliques offer an interesting angle to analyze why certain firms are better in going beyond local search than others. Clique spanning ties can be expected to have strategic advantages for...

Cliques (of densely connected alliance partners) have been largely neglected in technological alliances studies. In this study, we show that cliques and their dynamics are an interesting angle, to analyze why certain firms are better in going beyond local search than others. Clique spanning ties...

Network formation is often said to be driven by social capital considerations. A typical pattern observed in the empirical data on strategic alliances is that of small world networks: dense subgroups of firms interconnected by (few) clique-spanning ties. The typical argument is that there is...