Inter firm diversity and the management of meaning in international strategic alliances

Cross-national alliances have become an increasingly salient part of the contemporary global environment. These alliances bring together firms embedded in diverse institutional environments. Diversity in institutional environments makes meaning creation difficult as well as necessary. Our paper suggests that the alliance partners need to manage three kinds of meaning, namely pragmatic, moral, and cognitive. It is the effective management of meaning, which determines whether an alliance is able to achieve legitimacy. Implications for alliance management are discussed.