Alliance management teams and entrainment: Sharing temporal mental models

Creating and administrating successful strategic alliances poses a significant challenge to interorganizational managerial teams. Using shared mental model theory as a framework, we propose that the effectiveness of these managerial teams can be increased if the team shares a common temporal mental model with regard to the alliance. Specifically, a shared mental model in terms of the elements of entrainment (e.g. cycle, pace, time orientation) will allow team members to actively assess and better manage entrainment issues which we suggest are a crucial component of strategic alliances, although not one that has been studied to a great extent.