Inter-organizational Relations and Management Strategies in Corporate Alliances

<p>Alliances between companies are formed to acquire resources that the companies need but do not possess in order to survive and grow. About electric vehicles (EVs), Panasonic and Tesla Motors have alliance since 2009 to develop and produce lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) for EVs. The inter-organizational relationship is complementary to EVs and LIBs for EVs from the perspective of resource dependence, and is bi-dependent. In “Gigafactory”, Tesla shared factory preparation and management, while Panasonic produced LIB cells. No capital relationship may have affected the inter-organizational relationship. Later, with Tesla's expansion into China, the dependency on Panasonic declined and the power relationship changed. The dependency changed when Tesla announced the in-house production of LIBs for EVs. Conflicts of interest may arise in the future. From the perspective of management strategy, Tesla, as a venture company, focused on "exploration" of disruptive technologies, but has evolved to "ambidexterity management" with the successful launch of the Model 3. Furthermore, in the in-house production of LIBs, Tesla will conduct "exploitation" of disruptive technologies of "4680" cells, "tables" structure, and "dry electrode technology." Panasonic needs to increase its value to the same level as Tesla's plan, and is expected to evolve from "exploitation" to "ambidexterity management."</p>