Author(s): Khaled Mohammed Alkaabi, Samer Ali Al-shami, Salama Jamal Rafeea, Hayder Adil
Strategic alliance has been regarded as an effective development approach for healthcare industry development, especially in developing countries. Yet, the proportion of its failure is too high. The literature reported that managing alliance is the key driver for developing sustainable alliance. The literature argues that the dynamic capabilities of the partners form a backbone for strategic alliance formation. Yet, alliance failure goes beyond partners capabilities in terms of resources and know-how to include multiple challenges, which influence alliance development stages rather than formation stage only. In addition, the causes of alliance are varying from one industry to another. Thus, through review, this study found that there are nine main causes for alliance failure in healthcare sector, which include, environmental contingencies, cultural distance, road or narrow, alliance scopes, alliance contract, alliance governance form adopted, emerging alliance instability, management control, quality of the working relationship and earning and knowledge sharing. This study also found that knowledge sharing between partners has the possibility to limit alliance failure gap through providing a mutual understanding between partners.