Though we argued that valuable alliance experience is likely to be an antecedent
of alliance management capability, such a process might actually develop cyclically. If, according to our framework, a wide set of embedded alliances may
provide the firm with specific communication, coordination and bonding skills,
these skills are actually likely to lead the firm to experience further embedded
relationships, which will in turn lead to an additional improvement in the firm’s
alliance management capability and so on. In other words, we need to consider the
likelihood of a virtuous cycle being triggered by the capability building process.