Strategic HR and Contract

Management for Partnerships

Laurita M. Jones
PowerPoint Presentation for Weeks 4-5 Assignment
January 25, 2016
The New HR: The Savvy Strategic Partner (DDBA 8580 1)

Presentation Outline

Alliance as a Strategic Partnership

Managing Strategic Alliance Partnerships

Contract Management for Strategic Alliance Partnerships (Two

Slides)

Strategic HRs Role in Supporting Strategic Partnerships

Key Elements for Strategic Partnership Contracts

Learning Objectives

Reference List

Alliance as a Strategic Partnership

An alliance is a long-term voluntary contractual agreement between organizations.

Strategic alliances, a form of strategic partnerships, have become the foundation

for competitive strategy for many business entities (Tjemkes, Vos & Burgers,
2012).

Developing strategic relationships can enable corporations to achieve set goals

that would otherwise be difficult to realize.

Although alliances are beneficial, many of the relationships fail due to

corporations inability to effectively manage them (Sluyts, Matthyssens, Martens &
Streukens, 2011).

To enhance alliance capabilities, corporations need to establish a good strategic

model to effectively mange their alliance portfolio.

Managing Strategic Alliance

Partnerships

The success rates of alliances are significantly low because managers are not sufficiently

prepared to manage strategic partnerships (Tjemkes, Vos & Burgers, 2012).

Due to the high failure rates of strategic alliance partnerships, Tjemkes et al. (2012)

created an Alliance Development Framework to help firms manage better their strategic
partnerships and to realize alliance capability.
This framework provides a intelligible comprehension of the distinctive nature of strategic

alliance management.
Through alliance capability, corporations can control knowledge on the alliance

management process (Sluyts et al., 2011).

Alliance capability is the firms ability to manage its portfolio of alliances.
Human resources as a strategic partner acquires the knowledge and skills needed to help

senior leaders of corporations achieve alliance capability through resource management

capitalization (Lengnick-Hall, Lengnick-Hall, Andrade, & Drake, 2009).

Contract Management for Strategic

Alliance Partnerships

Alliance contracts require the parties involved to work together in good

faith, act with integrity, and to make best-for-project decisions
(Malhotra & Lumineau, 2011).

As stipulated by the contract terms, the alliance participants work as a

cohesive and collaborative team to address key project delivery
matters.

The risk of project delivery are mostly managed jointly by each

partnership member.

The decision for partnership contracting should be determinate on a

strategic procurement analysis and the governance structure (Nielsen,
2010).

Contract Management for

Strategic Alliance
Partnerships,Continued

Contracts provide the parties of a partnership with a way to

coordinate expectations and efforts.

The coordination process can help alliance participants

facilitate competence-based trust development (Malhotra &
Lumineau, 2011).

A contractual strategic partnership agreement should

involve trust judgments.

Trust judgments are two dimensional to include goodwill and

competence.

Strategic HRs Role in Supporting

Strategic Partnerships

HR practitioners are well-versed with business strategy, and are integral partners in the
strategic management process.

HR as a strategic partner can positively affect organizational performance and help firms
establish and sustain superior performance through human and social capital (Buller &
McEvoy, 2012).

Strategic human resources is essential to effective implementation of change efforts, such

as forming and managing strategic alliances.

HR and HR activities are strategically important, because they are potentially valuable,
atypical, difficult to replicate and replace, and they are vital to companies creating
organizational capability through strategic partnerships to help ratify the corporations
strategic goals (Buller & McEvoy, 2012).

HR professionals have the ability to help organizations enhance their strategic value and the
value of HR practices by refining business competencies.

Key Elements
for Contracts &
Contract
Management

Contracts for strategic partnerships

should clearly state the governance
structure (Nielsen, 2010).

It is necessary for the procedural

coordination mechanisms to align with
stipulations of the contractual
agreement.

Formal contractual elements (both

relational and contractual), such as
goal and activity expectations, trust,
information exchange, etc., are legally
essential when forming strategic
partnerships (Rai, Keil, Hornyak &
Wullenweber, 2012).

Strategic partnerships should be

governed using strategies that
substitutes relational governance for
certain contractual governance
mechanisms (Rai et al., 2012).

Learning Objectives

Alliances are a type of strategic partnership.

Effective management of strategic partnerships is vital to the

success of the business venture.

To enhance the success rates of an alliance or strategic

partnership, participants should enter into a contractual

agreement that outlines specific governance factors.
Strategic HR practitioners possess the knowledge, skills, and

ability to help firms enhance their overall performance and

competitive advantage position, and build organizational
capability by establishing strategic partnerships.

References

Buller, P., & McEvoy, G. (2012). Strategy, human resource management and performance:
Sharpening line of sight. Human Resource Management, 22, 43-56.
doi:10.1016/j.hrmr.2011.11.002

Lengnick-Hall. M., Lengnick-Hall, C., Andrade, L., & Drake, B. (2009). Strategic human resource
management: The evolution of the field. Human Resource Management Review, 19, 64-85.
doi:10.1016/j.hrmr.2009.01.002

Malhotra, D., & Lumineau, F. (2011). Trust and collaboration in the aftermath of conflict: The
effects of contract structure. Academy of Management Journal, 54, 981-998.
doi.org/10.5465/amj.2009.0683

Nielsen, B. (2010). Strategic fit, contractual, and procedural governance in alliances. Journal of
Business Research, 63, 682-689. doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2009.05.001

Rai, A., Keil, M., Hornyak, R., & Wullenweber, K. (2012). Hybrid relational-contractual governance
for business process outsourcing. Journal of Management Information Systems, 29, 213-256.
doi:10.2753/MIS0742-1222290208

Sluyts, K., Matthyssens, P., Martens, R., & Streukens, S. (2011). Building capabilities to manage
strategic alliances. Industrial Marketing Management, 40, 875-886.
doi:10.1016/j.indmarman.2011.06.022