When Does Competitive Learning Occur? The Impact of Alliance Network Embeddedness on Technological Invasion

Abstract Firms participate in an alliance network to collaborate for specific goals and common values; however, the network situation and the interaction between partnering firms enable them to appropriate their partners’ proprietary knowledge and adopt competitive actions. Little is known about whether and when the focal firm would invade its partner's technological domains in alliance networks. We examined how relational embeddedness and positional embeddedness influence the focal firm's technological invasion behaviour against its partner, and the moderating role of relative alliance experience. Although previous studies have emphasized that a central position would enhance firms’ competitive aggression, we argue that this central position imposes more constraints on firms’ competitive behaviour. The empirical results show a U‐shaped relationship between relational embeddedness and technological invasion, while relative centrality negatively affects technological invasion behaviour and negatively moderates the U‐shaped relationship. Furthermore, the results indicate that relative alliance experience attenuates the U‐shaped relationship between relational embeddedness and technological invasion, while it enhances the negative effect of relative centrality on technological invasion. These findings provide new insights and perspectives to study the coopetition phenomenon in alliance networks.