Building Blocks for Healthy Alliance Coordination

The case of a healthcare alliance serves to illustrate how partners can better coordinate their activities to improve their joint performance. Building on the knowledge-based view of the firm, the authors distill the microcomponents that underpin coordination at the intrafirm level, and they extend that framework to the alliance level. By knowing which individual-level capabilities, knowledge pieces, routines and coordination schemes to adjust, the alliance's structure can be fine-tuned, and participants given the training and support they need, to create value and boost the chances of successful interorganizational collaborations.