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Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of a relationship marketing orientation within a strategic alliance (referred to as the Alliance) to determine whether those firms have achieved synergy in knowledge sharing or whether they operate as knowledge silos. Design/methodology/approach - To achieve this aim the paper takes a strategic perspective and proposes a model based on the resource-based view of the firm (RBV) in order to discover whether member firms can move Alliance relationships towards knowledge sharing experienced within long-term and continuing relationships. Findings - The results of this study reveal that intangible assets, such as relationships and knowledge, should be managed by the Alliance with the same care as would be undertaken with tangible assets. Further, the development of a relationship market orientation (RMO) by the Alliance appears to be crucial. Research limitations/implications - A key limitation of this paper could be considered the sample size (although the response rate was high) and geographical location. Practical implications - Implications from the study were that, although information and knowledge were being shared, one area of improvement would be in relation to the depth of knowledge sharing that tended to occur on a superficial basis. Originality/value - The findings are original in terms of knowledge sharing across organizational boundaries. There is currently very little research available that focuses on the influence of an RMO on knowledge sharing within network groups. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

This paper investigates whether a relationship market orientation (RMO) influences knowledge sharing within a strategic alliance. It has generally been assumed that an RMO creates a positive influence on organizational performance thereby creating a competitive advantage for an organization ([53] Sin et al. , 2005). Relationship marketing has been defined as "establishing relationships with customers or other parties at a profit by mutual exchange and fulfillment of promises" ([20] Grönroos, 1991 p. 8). [53] Sin et al. (2005) were the first researchers to explore what is meant by a relationship marketing orientation and develop a reliable and valid measurement for those components which is utilized in this paper. Although, RMO emphasizes relationships with customers, this paper applies the concept of RMO in the context of partner relationships within a strategic alliance.

A strategic alliance is defined as a co-operative partnership between two or more organizations formed to create competitive opportunities for their mutual advantage ([60] Hefner, 1994). It has been argued that the primary motive for an alliance is a response to a market opportunity between partners who would normally be in a competitive situation, resulting in a volatile state of "competitive collaboration" ([14] Doz, 1996). For alliances to be successful [42] Medcof (1997) argues that human resource development (HRD)-related issues such as business and managerial skills and the compatibility of organizational cultures need attention. Furthermore, he points out that there are two forms of learning that can result from a strategic alliance:

the partners can obtain from each other technical knowledge about processes relating to commercially viable technology; and

they can learn from each other management and business skills that individually they were lacking.

[45] Park et al. (2004) maintain that the establishment of strategic alliances is a critical strategy for most contemporary firms as such relationships can help in the attainment of information and with access to complementary resources, among other benefits. During the past decade, the conceptualization of resources and capabilities and their management has been extended and reshaped by a surge of interest in knowledge management ([19] Grant, 2002) partly induced by the recognition that resources had been deployed inefficiently in the past. Developments in knowledge management have been concerned less with data, focusing more on organizational learning, the fostering of creativity and the management of intellectual property. The knowledge-based view of the firm considers the organization as a set of knowledge assets and the role of the firm in creating and deploying these assets to create value ([19] Grant, 2002).

Knowledge sharing as a capability - the resource-based view

This paper takes a strategic perspective and proposes a model based on the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm linking a RMO (which includes the notion of trust), knowledge sharing and competitive advantage to the competence of a strategic alliance (see Figure 1 [Figure omitted. See Article Image.]). Heterogeneity and immobility are at the heart of the RBV. For example, the RBV suggests that an industry may be heterogeneous in terms of the resources they control and these resources are imperfectly mobile across firms ([4] Barney, 2001). This essentially suggests that resources are valuable in and of themselves, driving the choice of strategy and that competitive advantage is derived through a combination of unique organizational resources in obtaining virtual monopoly positions in their respective markets ([59] Hamel and Prahalad, 1994). RBV is applied for two reasons:

[11] Das and Teng (2000) suggest that the RBV has rarely been applied in examining strategic alliances. They argue that the RBV provides an appropriate framework for examining alliances as essentially they are formed to gain access to other firm's valuable resources. Increasing empirical evidence is giving credibility to this premise of RBV theorists ([54] Spanos et al. , 2003). Previous theories that have been applied to examine alliances such as the Transaction Cost Economics ([24] Hennart, 1988) and Game Theory, ([46] Parkhe, 1993) have not emphasized the importance of the partner firms' resources.

By shifting the emphasis in the strategy literature from external factors (i.e. industry) to the internal firm resources as a source of competitive advantage ([4] Barney, 2001), RBV provides a framework for arguing that it is the strategic importance of people within organizations that makes the difference in gaining competitive advantage. As such, this provides support for human resource researchers and practitioners in addition to an improved understanding of the challenges of strategy ([57] Wright et al. , 2001).

While there has been ongoing debate about the distinction between resources and capabilities, this paper adopts [41] Makadok's (2001) distinction whereby a resource is viewed as an asset that can be observed (and is not necessarily tangible) valued and traded, such as a brand.. A capability, on the other hand, is an asset that cannot be observed (and consequently may be intangible), or valued and is traded only in entirety. Furthermore, capabilities alter resources by integrating them and recombining them ([15] Eisenhardt and Martin, 2000). As [2] Amit and Schoemaker (1993, p. 35) elaborate, "capability refers to the organisational capacity to deploy resources, generally in combination, using organisational processes to affect a desired end". Furthermore, capabilities are intangible and specific to firms that are developed over time due to the interactions among the firm's resources ([10] Conner and Prahalad, 1996).

The role of trust in inter-firm knowledge sharing

Trust has become a central concept in the study of inter-organizational collaboration ([34] Lane and Bachman, 1998). Increasing numbers of scholars point out that trust is the foundation of any alliance effort ([3] Arino et al. , 2001; [27] Howarth et al. , 1995; [39] Lynch, 1993) and for the development and sustainability of inter-organizational collaboration (see [47], [48] Ring and Van de Ven, 1992, 1994). Rather than being a resource for establishing collaborative relationships between organizations, trust is said to be an essential component of their constitution ([7] Clegg, 2000). It has been argued that the primary motive for an alliance is a response to a market opportunity between partners who would normally be in a competitive situation. This can result in a volatile state of "competitive collaboration" ([14] Doz, 1996) where trust between competitors is even more important because the risk of opportunistic behavior is higher. Where organizations share resources and information openly with other participants they will generally seek to reduce opportunistic behavior through the mutual understanding and goodwill of parties. Then again, trust is not static; it is a dynamic process that evolves according to the development of the relationship ([7] Clegg, 2000). Hence, an unsuccessful alliance could end in separation.

The positive link between trust and performance has been validated over time by systematic research efforts ([38] Luo, 2002). Inter-party trust plays an important role in successful strategic alliances due to the intensification of resource sharing and inter-partner learning ([38] Luo, 2002; Madhok, 1995).

[3] Arino et al. (2001) maintain that regardless of the size, form, or objectives underlying a strategic alliance, one factor that serves to distinguish them from other forms of inter-firm behavior is the need to establish relationships between the parties that make up the strategic alliance. Further, they put forward that the quality of relationship enjoyed by parties within the strategic alliance will depend on the degree to which those parties have come to rely on trust in their dealings. This is apparent from this study of the strategic alliance. For example, members of this alliance banded together to come up with their own solution for the shortage of trades people which was to employ apprentices amongst themselves:

As the trust developed between the group of companies their association and joint vision made it easier for them to consider "sharing" apprentices. As was common across industry most small businesses were not engaging their own apprentices due to a combination of factors including their ability to provide adequate exposure to a sufficient range of skills (Alliance web site, 2005).

Of course apprentices are a tangible resource but these co-operating firms were also in the process of building their company capital. Company capital can be manifest in three forms according to [8] Coleman (1988, p. 101), these are physical, human and social capital:

Physical capital is the tangible and financial assets of a company - it is easy to measure in monetary terms through economic and accounting systems.

Human capital concerns the characteristics (knowledge and education) of people employed in a company.

Social capital relates to the social relations with people both within and outside of the company. Social capital belongs to at least two parties and it takes more than one person to build it up.

It has been suggested that interplay between the three forms of capital can help to create new capital - for example the building of social capital can lead to increases in human and physical capital (as explored later in this paper). [36] Levin et al. (2002) sought to determine the factors that a knowledge seeker uses to evaluate the trustworthiness of a knowledge source and came up with four. These were: demographic similarity (such as age and gender); organizational similarity (such as position in the hierarchy); social capital (the presence of an ongoing relationship between individuals) and knowledge source (credibility, discretion and receptivity). These aspects of social capital are the focus of this paper, for as [31] Jakobsen (2003) suggests, it is the ability of the company to interact with relevant partners that will influence the profitability of the entire capital and, consequently, the economic performance of the company.

The intensification of resource sharing and inter-partner learning within strategic alliances makes trust between alliance partners even more crucial (Madhok, 1995) which is why inter-party trust plays an important role within successful strategic alliances ([38] Luo, 2002). The rationale is that when alliance partners have high levels of trust in each other, they will be more likely to be committed to, and persist with, knowledge sharing.

Knowledge sharing does not, of course, occur in isolation. Mechanisms need to be in place to assist the sharing of information and ideas between individuals and they need to possess the skills whereby they learn about and from each other. As such, a range of HRD strategies can support synergies in knowledge management to enhance learning within strategic alliances such as inter-firm HRD learning support networks, communication strategies, benchmarking and inter-firm working groups. [19] Grant (2002) associates a number of knowledge processes with knowledge management. These include: knowledge creation, acquisition, integration, sharing, replication, storage and organization, measurement and identification that may be supported by such HRD strategies. This study will explore relationships between the capability of relationship market orientation (comprising trust, bonding, communication, shared values, empathy and reciprocity as per [53] Sin et al. 's (2005) measure), knowledge integration and competitive advantage within the Alliance reported on. Figure 1 [Figure omitted. See Article Image.] presents the conceptual model that is hypothesized and tested.

Hypotheses development

As previously discussed [53] Sin et al. (2005), argue that RMO is a one-dimensional construct which includes; trust, bonding, communication, shared value, empathy, and reciprocity. This capability provides a broader platform to understand knowledge integration and competitive advantage in strategic alliances, as it includes other important characteristics (as opposed to merely trust). An important insight provided by RBV is that not all capabilities can be equally important, and consequently, potential sources of sustainable competitive advantage ([16] Fahy and Smithee, 1999). Therefore, several authors have proposed characteristics of capabilities that allow them to be sources of competitive advantage (e.g., [2] Amit and Schoemaker, 1993; [4] Barney, 2001). This paper argues that a RMO possesses four characteristics that allow capabilities to be sources of competitive advantage:

valuable in terms of exploiting opportunities and/or neutralising threats in the firm's environment;

rare among the organisation's current and future competitors;

it must be imperfectly imitable; and

strategically equivalent substitutes do not exist ([4] Barney, 2001).

Furthermore, [53] Sin et al. (2005) empirically validate their hypothesis that RMO is related to business performance (i.e. market share and return on investment (ROI)). Based on the literature reviewed the following hypothesis is proposed:

H1 . RMO positively effects competitive advantage.

Knowledge transfer involves the spreading of knowledge from an individual level primarily through fluid communication ([33] Jerez-Gomez et al. , 2005). Knowledge integration involves the transfer of information at the group level (that is integration of the knowledge that has been acquired at the individual level ([52] Senge, 1990) It is argued that firms involved in strategic Alliances are more likely to be involved in knowledge transfer and integration when the behavioral characteristics found in RMO are present (trust, empathy, and communication). In other words, characteristics such as trust, bonding and communication allow individual Alliance partners to be more open, informal in their dealings with each other which facilitate the transfer and subsequently the integration of knowledge at the macro or group level. Therefore the following hypothesis is proposed:

H2 . A RMO positively affects knowledge transfer and integration.

This paper further argues that the correlation between a RMO and competitive advantage is mediated by knowledge integration. In other words, the qualities embedded in relationship market orientation (that is trust and reciprocity); provide a basis for knowledge integration, which then provides the foundation for competitive advantage. This is because RMO creates and shapes knowledge transfer and integration, which, in turn, determines competitive advantage. This chain of causality implies an indirect link between RMO and competitive advantage. Furthermore, knowledge integration by itself may not have a dramatic influence on competitive advantage but it will produce competitive advantage when it is based on RMO, as the link between RMO and knowledge integration is causally ambiguous and therefore difficult to imitate by competitors. Based on the prior evidence the following partially mediating hypothesis is proposed:

H3 . The contribution of RMO to competitive advantage is partially mediated by knowledge integration.

The business network

The regional business network where this study took place is referred to as "the Alliance" throughout this paper. Alliances may be bilateral or multilateral. The strategic Alliance reported in this paper is multilateral in that it comprises 60 manufacturing and engineering companies based in the Hunter Region of New South Wales, Australia. A 1994 survey of the Alliance general managers revealed that the reasons they gave for joining were related to maintaining and improving competitiveness through sharing management know-how, training costs and programs, engaging in joint tendering and increasing market share ([18] Fulop and Kelly, 1995). In 2004 the authors revisited the Alliance in order to discover how effectively their joining objectives had been achieved and the forms of learning that may have occurred among partners.

The Alliance has four membership classes. Member companies range in size from ten to 150 staff with a collective workforce of 1,500 people and a combined annual turnover of $180 million. Of the 60 members these comprise large "patron" organizations that support the network, sponsors that offer service provision and support (both classes in the form of financial support), facilities, advice and similar. General members are small-to-medium (SMEs) that are involved in the Hunter region engineering, manufacturing and services sector. Associates are micro-businesses that are involved in service provision or engineering. All classes of membership have an opportunity to contribute to the network but the focus of this study was the general members (totaling 34 member firms).

Network members are in multiple relationships with each other, the most common being competitor and customer relationships. Other firms within the Alliance represent relationships right along the supply chain, however, from supplier to customer and firms representing many of the processes occurring in between. These various stakeholders operate at both macro and micro levels - macro level stakeholders would include suppliers, contractors, customers and competitors, whereby those at the micro level are the individuals co-ordinating and co-operating between firms ([37] Limerick and Cunnington, 1993).

The Alliance positioning statement is "the competitive edge in engineering" - the competitive emphasis being a view that is reflected in much of the alliance literature as the purpose of alliance creation ([12] Day, 1995; [21] Hamel, 1991; [29] Inkpen, 1998; [30] Iyer, 2002). [23] Handy (1990) predicted that networks and alliances would become increasingly popular as small firms joined together to form a "strategic mass" in order to compete with larger firms. The strategic mass known as the Alliance allows firms to use their relationships with other firms, be they suppliers, customers or competitors, to enhance individual business capabilities and provide greater access to market opportunities ([9] Connell and Ryan, 1995). It is the relationships within the Alliance that are the focus of interest for this study.

Methodology

A survey was developed in order to tap the key constructs of relationship market orientation, knowledge integration and competitive advantage and a small number of interviews were carried out with key Alliance members in order to determine some of the factors that would assist in explaining the survey findings. First, the survey development and findings will be outlined; next the interview data will be discussed before any conclusions are made.

Survey development and findings

RMO was adapted from [53] Sin et al. (2005) and is a second order factor. The 22-item scale included items such as "We share the same worldview and we work in close cooperation". Knowledge integration was adapted from [33] Jerez-Gomez et al. (2005). The factor included four items such as "Being an Alliance member has not resulted in any strategic advantages for us". Competitive advantage was adapted from [32] Jap (1999). The four-item scale included items such as "We have gained strategic advantages over our competitors".

In all instances a seven-point Likert scale was utilized to measure these constructs. The anchors for relationship marketing orientation, knowledge integration and competitive advantage "strongly disagree" to "strongly agree". The Alliance comprises of 34 members. We received 18 surveys, which is a 53 percent response rate. Partial least square (PLS) was used for the main analysis primarily because it is an appropriate structural equation modeling approach for small samples ([6] Chin and Newsted, 1999). PLS is considered a valid approach for testing multiple relationships and is founded on a soft modeling technique ([17] Falk and Miller, 1992) that applies multiple indices to evaluate a theoretical model, including R ² , average variance explained (AVE), averaged variance accounted for (AVA), regressions weights and loadings ([43] O'Cass, 2001).

As the conceptual model is one-tailed, critical ratios determined by the bootstrap method are: 1.645 is significant at the 0.05 level, 2.326 at 0.01 and 3.090 at 0.001 level. The critical ratios obtained from bootstrapping suggested that the outer model for the second order construct: the relationship market orientation (trust, bonding, communication, shared value, empathy and reciprocity) was significant. In the context of the inner model and the hypotheses, as shown in Table I [Figure omitted. See Article Image.], the results suggest that that the hypothesized paths are significant, as evidenced by critical ratios (>1.645). Figure 2 [Figure omitted. See Article Image.] presents the results graphically.

The mediating effects

Both direct and indirect relationships are examined through PLS. A direct effect can be determined by the coefficient of the path from the exogenous variable to the endogenous variable. An indirect effect is determined by understanding the effect of a particular variable on a second variable through its effect on a third intervening or mediating variable ([1] Alwin and Hauser, 1975; [28] Igbaria et al. , 1997). Consequently, it is "the product of the path coefficients along an indirect route from cause to effect via tracing arrow in the headed direct only. When more than one indirect path exists, the total indirect effect is their sum. The sum of the direct and indirect affect reflects the total effects of the variable on the endogenous variable" ([43] O'Cass, 2001 p. 56). This logic lays as a foundation for analyzing the mediating effects of knowledge integration on the relationships between RMO and competitive advantage.

Table II [Figure omitted. See Article Image.] provides the results of the mediation analysis. The data suggest that RMO has a direct positive effect on competitive advantage (0.193) and an indirect positive effect on competitive advantage, with knowledge integration as an intervening variable (0.110); the total effects increased to (0.303). This suggests that the mediation hypothesis is confirmed, and suggests that it is partial in nature as the total effects are greater than the direct effects.

A 1994 survey of the Alliance members asked for the main reasons for joining the network (listed below as 1-3). This survey repeated that question asking Alliance members to first, rank these factors as (most important to least important), then indicate to what extent the objectives had been met and their responses are listed below. A non-parametric test, the Freidman Test was applied to identify whether any significant differences between the three objectives existed. As the p value was less then 0.05, it can be argued that there are significant differences between how the respondents ranked the objectives. The order of the ranking was as follows:

to share knowledge;

to gain competitive advantage; and

to compete in the international market.

Furthermore, when the rankings were averaged in terms of the extent to which objectives had been met they averaged 3.4 out of 5.

Interview data

In addition to the surveys four interviews were conducted firstly with the Alliance manager and then with three key Alliance members (one of whom had left and then rejoined the Alliance). The member firms were selected due to their size (per number of employees), knowledge and length of Alliance membership.

The Alliance manager was keen to know more about learning processes within the network so invited the researchers to undertake the study and present the findings for discussion at the Alliance yearly conference.

Table III [Figure omitted. See Article Image.] outlines the background information covering the three firms where the interviews were conducted. As indicated this includes the number of years the firm has been in operation, how many employees the firm has, their type of employment contract, challenges over the past three years, responses to those challenges, the position of the interviewee and the number of years the firm has been an Alliance member. As can be seen from Table III [Figure omitted. See Article Image.] these factors vary greatly among the three firms. Firm three actually withdrew from the Alliance for a number of years, as it was not felt to be meeting the needs of the firm. As indicated, however, Firm three rejoined in 2000 as the Alliance manager persuaded the MD that Alliance membership would prove beneficial for the firm.

Table IV [Figure omitted. See Article Image.] outlines the responses that are more pertinent to the benefits and rationale for Alliance membership. This includes whether or not Alliance membership has assisted those firms in meeting organizational challenges, the reason why the firm belongs to the Alliance, the type of communication they tend to have with other Alliance members and whether or not they thought the company capital of their firms (physical, human or social as discussed earlier) had changed as a result of Alliance membership. Asked why they interacted with other Alliance members the interviewees responded in different ways. The firm one interviewee (that has been an Alliance member from the start) is an owner-manager and believes he plays a leadership role for the other network members both providing and gaining knowledge through Alliance membership. Firm two identified networking, knowledge sharing and corporate social responsibility as the main reasons for interacting with other network members - by this he meant giving something back to the network's other members as well as gaining something for himself/his firm.

The type of knowledge shared amongst members ranged from business to strategic knowledge. The firm one interviewee welcomed the opportunity to discuss business and strategic matters with others he thought would understand his issues and be able to provide advice. As he said "with most of my staff being trades people they are not attempting to gain competitive advantage, improve market share and opportunities as this is solely up to me". The firm's two interviewees felt that knowledge sharing within the network was an opportunity to build relationships more informally than when undertaking day-to-day business. Thus, it was considered a way in which to enhance relationships. The firm three interviewee was positive about sharing knowledge but warned that there was a need to be "careful about sharing mistakes, as otherwise our company may seem incompetent to other companies. I might share information about mistakes we have made on a confidential level but otherwise feel I would need to be careful".

This comment was reinforced by the survey data indicating that knowledge sharing occurred mostly at the surface level. For example, when statements referring to knowledge integration and transfer were posed in the survey the statements "errors and failures are discussed and analyzed amongst Alliance members" and "the Alliance has instruments that allow what has been learnt in the past situations to remain valid, even when members leave" received low responses while "Alliance members have a chance to talk among themselves about new ideas, programs and activities" received a high ranking response.

When asked which aspect of their company capital (physical, human or social) was influenced most by Alliance membership all three interviewees stated that it was the social capital. All three said that developing the social capital can impact on the other types of capital. As the firm one interviewee stated "it is definitely the social capital which dominates as it can impact on human capital and physical capital (particularly for the smaller firms)". An example firm three interviewee gave was that people (resources) have been retained by other Alliance companies if they have lost by another one in a downturn or due to similar circumstances".

Other factors the interviewees said they would like from Alliance membership was to gain and share information about: the impact of global factors, that is, what is happening in the work environment for manufacturing. For example, is one company having a bad time or are all in the sector, gaining specialist knowledge through guest speakers, operating as a lobby group to government - such as the current period where the region and the country are suffering trades skill shortage. Additionally, all three interviewees had expertise they believed they could share more formally with other members, such as the selection of overseas agents, improving occupational health and safety and assistance in branding the organization.

Implications and conclusions

With regard to knowledge management it has been argued that what is presented as knowledge management is often simply information resource management (IRM) with a new label ([25] Hildreth and Kimble, 2002). In this instance is seems that the Alliance could improve both knowledge and information resource management processes as there was a lack of any attempt to capture what was shared verbally by Alliance members in any other form. Moreover, it appears that during the interview process some Alliance members sometimes used the terms "information" and "knowledge" interchangeably. This supports [56] Wilson's (2002) view that knowledge management is frequently an umbrella term for a variety of organizational activities related to the management of information, information sharing and the management of work practices.

[25] Hildreth and Kimble (2002) also identify the sharing of "hard" and "soft" knowledge within communities of practice (CoP). According to their definitions hard knowledge is articulated and exemplified by tasks the members of the CoP perform - in this case the formal meetings and other interactions of the Alliance. Conversely, soft knowledge:

is that knowledge which the newcomer cannot learn simply by demonstration or instruction. It includes learning the language and unspoken conventions of the community. Soft knowledge is developed and learnt through being socialized into the community and through interaction with the existing members.

[35] Lave and Wenger (1991) explain that newcomers learn the practice of the community by being situated in it and from its established members. It was evident from the CoP in this study, the Alliance, that deeper levels of soft knowledge sharing (such as the confidential sharing of mistakes) were shared only when trust and established relationships had developed between Alliance members.

Although a key limitation of this paper was the sample size, the response rate was relatively high and the findings would be of interest to other Alliance and network groups. Furthermore, this study focuses on a network group in one country, Australia. Although the findings may be generalized in relation to alliances in other countries, it is important for future research to take into account potential cultural differences in understanding such concepts as knowledge sharing within an alliance. For example, firms in some countries may be more open with knowledge while others may consider alliance partners to be competitors and consequently be unwilling to share knowledge that may provide competitive advantage.

The sample comprised 18 surveys and further research could aim to study strategic Alliances that have more members - although such Alliances may not be that simple to locate. Additionally, different capabilities that may affect knowledge integration could also be studied. This becomes important as RBV theory suggests that interaction between capabilities is an important factor to consider when examining the effect of capabilities on various organisational phenomenon.

That said, the results suggest that the theoretical model functioned as hypothesized. Essentially, the findings highlight the importance of a relationship market orientation (comprised of trust, bonding, communication, shared values, empathy, and reciprocity) in the context of knowledge integration and the development of competitive advantage within a strategic Alliance context. Additionally, the development of RMO by the Alliance appears to be crucial. First, for the Alliance members in their pursuit of competitive advantage and second, as knowledge integration partially mediates the relationship between RMO and competitive advantage, the use of RMO to drive knowledge integration may provide a viable path to competitive advantage for the Alliance.

Hence, the authors suggest that a RMO should be considered as an Alliance capability. From an Alliance perspective RMO is a philosophy of undertaking business successfully - a distinct organizational culture/value that puts relationships at the centre of the Alliance's strategic or operational thinking. RMO has been associated with providing a competitive edge, providing a positive impact for organizational performance.

It is evident from the results of this study that the intangible assets such as relationships and knowledge should be managed by the Alliance with the same care as would be undertaken with tangible assets as recommended by [50] Rylatt (2003) and [51] Saint-Onge and Armstrong (2004). This necessitates frequent communication and interaction between members to strengthen relationships. The Alliance members meet on a monthly basis to share knowledge in a relatively formal way and at other times at their yearly conference, dinners, shared training sessions and when undertaking business with one another. Those members that have developed closer relationships also share resources such as materials and employees. All the interviewees recognized the value of social capital and how it can serve to enhance both physical and human capital. This is reinforced by [31] Jakobsen (2003), who maintains that it is social capital of a company which activates the other two forms of capital. He states that it is the ability of the company to interact with relevant partners that will influence the profitability of the entire capital, and hence the economic performance of the company.

The major aim of this paper was to determine whether the Alliance partner firms have achieved knowledge synergies or whether they operate within knowledge silos. All the evidence suggests that there would be no point in joining a network or strategic alliance if knowledge were not shared. The emphasis on building social capital and relationships is highly prominent from the literature. It is evident from this study, however, that information and knowledge are being shared but one area of improvement that could be beneficial was in relation to the depth of knowledge sharing among Alliance members that tended to occur on a superficial basis only. As pointed out earlier this was evident both from the survey and interview data where there was a reluctance to share learning from negative experiences or mistakes firms had made nor was there any attempt being made to "capture" knowledge from current members to assist future members.

It was also apparent that of [42] Medcof's (1997) two forms of learning that he proposed can occur within alliances it was the management and business skills that were most commonly shared among Alliance members rather than the technical knowledge relating to technology. Again, the business and management knowledge could be deepened and strengthened over time according to the survey respondents and interviewees.

Nonetheless, as the firm one interviewee pointed out "relationships take time to build" and this is a recurring theme throughout the relationship marketing and Alliance/network literature. [30] Iyer (2002) points out that Alliance partnerships grow over time and learning can occur throughout the evolutionary processes that are evident as alliances develop and change in scope, functions and strategic rationale change over a life span ([12] Day, 1995). [58] Ellis et al. (1993) characterize relationship marketing as "interactions, reciprocities and long term commitments". Relationships may be contractual between organizations but it is the interaction of people that play out the relationship. Hence, if the social interaction is positive it will assist in strengthening trust - one of the major factors that support a relationship marketing orientation.