Identification of influence factors in the information technology formation in United Arab Emirates

This paper explores and predicts the link between the motives and the nature of the governance structure in the strategic alliances between the UAE (United Arab Emirates) organizations and the foreign companies in the field of information technology (IT). The hypotheses were tested to predict whether functions and sectors influence the formal of governance between relational versus classical. The findings suggest that development purpose and high sectors predict relational governance, while marketing/sales functions and low technology sector predict classical (arms-length) alliances. However, contrary to the expectation, real estate as a low technology sector predicts relational rather than classical alliances.