Technological Prestige and the Accumulation of Alliance Capital

Abstract

In this chapter, I argue that the prestige of an actor is a primary determinant of its ability to access resources held by others. The reason for this is that relationships with prestigious actors are inherently valuable because they convey status to affiliates, and so prestigious actors have many opportunities to form new relationships in which they exchange status for other kinds of resources. The chapter contains an empirical analysis that shows that high prestige semiconductor firms establish many license alliances in which they gain the rights to produce and sell the proprietary technologies of competing organizations. If we conceive of a portfolio of interorganizational access relationships as a component of corporate social capital, the findings show that social capital accrues at a high rate to high status organizations.