Renault-Nissan as a Project of Projects: A Relational Approach to Strategic Alliances

Magali Ayache; Hervé Dumez

doi:10.37725/mgmt.2024.9542

Magali Ayache Théorie Économique, Modélisation et Applications (THEMA), CY Cergy Paris Université, CNRS, THEMA, 95000 Cergy-Pontoise, France; https://orcid.org/0009-0003-2501-5698
Hervé Dumez Centre de Recherche en Gestion, Institut Interdisciplinaire de l’innovation i3-CRG, École polytechnique, CNRS, IP Paris, Palaiseau, France https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9630-7722

DOI: https://doi.org/10.37725/mgmt.2024.9542

Keywords: Strategic alliances, Relationships, Projects, Multilevel dynamic analysis, Renault-Nissan alliance

Abstract

The study of strategic alliances has traditionally focused on their initial purpose and examined the complementarities in assets and competences that prompt two firms with aligned objectives to collaborate. More recently, research has shifted toward understanding the dynamic nature of these alliances. In alignment with Dyer and his colleagues (1998; 2018), this article seeks to investigate the Renault-Nissan strategic alliance as a relationship conceptualized as a project of projects. To achieve this, this study draws on the literature on alliances, relationships, and projects. Through the analysis of the Renault-Nissan Alliance, the study establishes that this collaboration is a dynamic, multilevel relationship that articulates an unfinished project (‘unfinished business’; Duck, 1990) and finished projects and that presents itself as a project of projects. Within this dynamic framework, the future takes precedence over the past (questioning the importance of relational capital). By examining the Renault-Nissan case through the lens of relational dynamics as a project of projects, this article makes thoughtful contributions to the theories of alliances, projects, and relationships.

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Author Biographies

Magali Ayache, Théorie Économique, Modélisation et Applications (THEMA), CY Cergy Paris Université, CNRS, THEMA, 95000 Cergy-Pontoise, France;

Magali Ayache is an associate professor in management sciences at CY Cergy-Paris University (CY TECH), and is a member of the THEMA laboratory (UMR 8184). Her research focuses on management and organizations, specifically on managers, interpersonal and professional relationships, both hierarchical and non-hierarchical, and interorganizational relations. She has published in Revue française de gestion and in Gérer et Comprendre, and is a member of AIMS, EGOS, and EURAM.

Hervé Dumez, Centre de Recherche en Gestion, Institut Interdisciplinaire de l’innovation i3-CRG, École polytechnique, CNRS, IP Paris, Palaiseau, France

Hervé Dumez is research director (CNRS, France) and professor at École polytechnique (France). He is a EURAM fellow and EURAM VP Research. He has published eleven books (among them, Comprehensive Research. A methodological and epistemological introduction to qualitative research, Copenhagen Business School Press, 2016, and, with Sandra Renou, How Business Organizes Collectively. An inquiry on trade associations and other meta-organizations, Edward Elgar, 2020), more than eighty articles (Academy of Management Review, Journal of Business Ethics, European Management Review, M@n@gement. . .), and more than fifty book chapters (MIT Press, Oxford University Press, Routledge, Palgrave, Edward Elgar, Bardwell, De Boeck. . .).

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