Collaboration and Co-production in the Singapore Film Industry: Opportunities for Development through Strategic Alliances

Abstract

This paper examines the significance of intangible resources as core competences that are likely to contribute most in an uncertain, changing and unpredictable environment such as the film industry. It identifies the nature and role of these resources which are mainly knowledge-based such as creativity, experience and reputation and how these could be brokered through coproduction and collaboration with foreign film companies. The objective of this paper is to examine how local firms shape their capabilities in order to enable them to renew their resource and capability bases. This paper maintains that coproduction is adopted as a strategic alliance for local firms in Singapore in order to gain benefits of international firms‘ tacit knowledge and ideas and to build on accumulated memories and experiences. This approach is viewed as a way to ride on the competences and successes of the well established firms and hence gained status in the process. This paper argues that while co-production and strategic partnerships may generate valuable learning opportunities for firms to gain access to the knowledge-based resources of their partners, they do not necessarily generate equal rewards and benefits for all parties concerned. It can be a zero-sum game in which failure to gain access to partner knowledge results in unequal benefits accruing from such alliances. Such a paradox presents enormous challenges for an emerging Singapore film industry trying to break into the global circuit.