Information exchange within horizontal relationships: A fuzzy-set approach to companies' characteristics role

This study aims at exploring the causal link between information exchange and companies' characteristics, in horizontal business relationships. Cooperative horizontal relationships, such as strategic alliances, are a growing phenomenon with important benefits, like the ability of participants to accumulate knowledge through information exchange over time. Data collection encompasses mainly in-depth interviews with the international or the procurement departments of all Portuguese pharmaceutical companies with production facilities in Portugal. The paper addresses 23 intercompetitor relationships and pursues the study's objective by combining a case study strategy with a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA). This research incorporates three company's characteristics: the number of employees, the annual turnover and the companies' age. The information exchange entails, as expected, several alternative paths. Configurations that are either part of the solution for the outcome (information exchange) or its negation include all or almost all the causal conditions considered.