Inter-Organizational Strategic Cooperation: An Analysis of Pakistani Commercial Banking Sector
Intense competition of this post computer era has made many organizations to come together and to collaborate in different fields where they have a competitive edge. Banks are also not left behind in this area and like other business ventures, are exploring new ways of having strategic alliances with other businesses. Keeping this growing strategic partnership trend in view, a study was designed to focus upon the nature of various business strategic ties of banks operating in Pakistan with the other active corporate business units of the region. Data were collected from the representative branches of the following four main categories of banks; nationalized / government owned banks,  private banks, foreign banks and Islamic banks, located in the twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad in Pakistan.  Branch Managers of the said branches were interviewed through an interview guide developed for the present study that included open ended questions regarding the main research problem. The researcher was given access to secondary data too like promotion material published by the banks highlighting their inter-organizational business collaborations. Data were tabulated, analyzed and interpreted. The findings of the study indicate that out of the four categories of banks, foreign banks were found to have maximum strategic collaborations and specially in consumer products. They opted for such inter-organizational cooperation to capture a bigger market share. Private banks had such partnerships in fewer products. The data revealed that very low or no collaborations were found in case of nationalized and Islamic banks.