The selection of partners in non-equity bilateral alliances: Some qualitative evidences from the Brazilian petrochemical leader

Due to the scarcity of resources, the need to foster the developments and the lack of some competencies internally, companies are forced to cooperate with another companies, universities and external agents, even individuals, as suggested by the Open Innovation paradigm. This paper address the partner selection stage in non-equity bilateral alliances projects, under the point of view of the parent company, taking into account some factors, such as the kind of competencies searched, the type of the partner and the type of innovation project carried out. The empirical data come from one case study in the biggest Brazilian petrochemical company, where we analyzed in-depth twenty alliances projects carried out with different types of partners - competitors, customers, suppliers, universities; and showing different innovativeness degree - incremental innovation, platforms of products, breakthrough and basic science. Founded on the resources based view and knowledge based view backgrounds, it was possible to identify certain specific domains for the types of alliances, along the exploitation-exploration continuum. These preliminary evidences have enabled the building of several hypotheses to be tested in one on-going quantitative research focused in the Brazilian chemical sector.