Termination provisions establish vital governance mechanisms in alliances, offering essential safeguards and incentives by providing the flexibility to exit (underperforming) partnerships. However, they can also foster distrust and instability by potentially undermining commitment and continuity. We argue that the motivation behind termination provisions lies in the need to address safeguarding and flexibility concerns arising from increases in alliance scope, upfront payments, and technological uncertainty. Conversely, alliances with strong relational commitment and social embeddedness stemming from prior and indirect ties tend to omit termination provisions. Drawing on an analysis of 1,576 biopharmaceutical alliance contracts, we scrutinize various conditional and unconditional termination rights, along with their partner-specific allocations. Among other findings, we observe a positive association between broad alliance scope and termination rights for patent challenge, for lack of reasonable effort, and for specific countries assigned to the research and development (R&D) firm contributing technological expertise and, furthermore, termination rights for convenience for the client firm sponsoring the alliance. Larger unilateral upfront payments increase the likelihood that the client firm receives termination rights for lack of reasonable effort and for convenience. Higher technological uncertainty is associated with termination rights for convenience for the client or R&D firm. In contrast, prior ties negatively correlate with termination rights for convenience for the client firm, while indirect ties show a negative association with termination rights for convenience and specific countries for the R&D firm. Conceptually, our study highlights the relevance of termination provisions as elastic governance mechanisms that enable partners to accommodate postcontractual disturbances.

中文翻译：

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通过终止条款进行战略联盟治理：保障和激励、灵活性和承诺

终止条款在联盟中建立了重要的治理机制，通过提供退出（表现不佳）合作伙伴关系的灵活性来提供必要的保障和激励。然而，它们也可能破坏承诺和连续性，从而加剧不信任和不稳定。我们认为，终止条款背后的动机在于需要解决因联盟范围扩大、预付款和技术不确定性而产生的保障和灵活性问题。相反，由于先前和间接的关系而具有强烈的关系承诺和社会嵌入性的联盟往往会省略终止条款。根据对 1,576 份生物制药联盟合同的分析，我们仔细审查了各种有条件和无条件终止权，以及其特定于合作伙伴的分配。除其他发现外，我们观察到广泛的联盟范围与专利挑战的终止权之间存在正相关关系，因为缺乏合理的努力，以及分配给研发（R＆D）公司的特定国家贡献技术专业知识，此外，终止权为赞助联盟的客户公司提供便利。较大的单边预付款增加了客户公司因缺乏合理努力和为了方便而获得终止权的可能性。为了方便客户或研发公司，更高的技术不确定性与终止权相关。相比之下，先前关系与客户公司的便利终止权负相关，而间接关系则与研发公司的便利终止权和特定国家负相关。从概念上讲，我们的研究强调了终止条款作为弹性治理机制的相关性，使合作伙伴能够适应合同后的干扰。