Cognitive capabilities and the strategic alliances' performance: how time frame matters

Pursuing underpinnings of managerial cognition, researchers have been exploring cognitive capability in organisations. Although such investigations have largely focused on managerial decision making, few studies have explored the cognitive capability as a needed capability for strategic alliances' partners. In this article, the cognitive capability is considered as a key capability in alliances' partner selection, and relationships between psychological underpinnings of cognitive capability and alliance performance are studied in different time frames of alliances' endurance. Using OLS regression analysis on data from 115 international alliances, the empirical models comprised of perception, attention, problem-solving, communication and social cognition are designed to explain the role of cognitive capability in performance of strategic alliances. Results provide a clear understanding of the importance of cognitive capability in alliances' partner selection and show how these psychological underpinnings fuel alliances' performance in short/medium-term and long-term.