Companies' early-stage research and development efforts are extremely uncertain and research has often argued that companies should form one technology-development alliance at a time to see if a new technology may have potential. The drawback of such a sequential approach is that companies are left empty-handed in case that one alliance does not produce any results. The portfolio perspective as proposed in this research instead argues that in the face of severe uncertainty, companies should engage in multiple simultaneous alliances in order to distinguish quickly between technological dead-ends and promising new technologies. Based on the information efficiently gained through such a parallel approach, companies then subsequently bring to market only those technologies deemed promising.

Results of comprehensive econometric analyses of a large sample of companies active in the U.S. information and communication technology industry during 1975-1999 strongly underline the value of such a portfolio perspective. The research supports the nascent shift in emphasis from optimising the learning potential of individual alliances to that of a company's entire portfolio of technology-development alliances. As such, it has fundamental practical importance because it shows that, under certain circumstances, companies can benefit from taking a portfolio approach to their technology-development alliances.

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