Step 2: Analyzing the strategy – alliance portfolio alignment

The next step is to determine whether the theoretically expected alliance portfolio characteristics are related to the distinct strategic types as described above. To this end, I compared the mean values of alliance portfolio characteristics across clusters. I used a combination of univariate and multivariate techniques comparing network features individually and as a group to test hypotheses 2-5 as described in chapter 3.5. After a brief introduction to the statistical techniques for assessing group differences, the analytical procedure and finally results will be described in detail.