Why do both marriages and strategic alliances have over 50% failure rate? A study of relationship quality of strategic alliances in China, Japan and Mauritius

This research explores the importance of quality variables for achieving high quality in strategic alliance relationship, reasons for strategic alliance failures and provides insights into their underlying causes. Data for analysis is generated from 112 managers from different industries in three countries. Frequency, factor, and regression analysis, reliability tests are used for data analysis. Multiple item scales based on five qualities model (5Qs) were developed and adapted. The results suggest that there is an important interaction between most independent variables and alliance motivations, length and type of alliance. Quality of atmosphere followed by quality of interaction was identified as the most important variables to achieve high total quality of strategic alliance relationship (TQSAR). The proposed 5Qs model consists of some generic and integrated dimensions. Each quality dimension is represented by a number of statements/items, intended to represent a specific quality factor as thoroughly and reliably as possible.