This paper brings together two different research strands on international strategic alliance, alliance capabilities’ streams of research and dyadic interaction perspective, with the aim to came to a more comprehensive explanation of the drivers of the successful management of international strategic alliances. We analyze alliance management capability, focusing not only on internal alliance capability but also on perceived partner’s relational capability. In fact, SMEs that move to new markets through strategic alliance face with the internal problem of coordinating the partnership and, at the same time, relying on a partner that should be able to effectively manage the alliance.
An empirical analysis is carried out on a sample of Italian manufacturing SMEs in order to verify whether and how the internal alliance capabilities of firms and the perception of their partners’ alliance capabilities foster mutual trust and, by thus, alliance performance.
Results show that partner’s perceived alliance management capability is particularly relevant because of its reinforcement effect on the internal alliance management capability-trust relationship and its positive and significant impact on the alliance performance.
