The goal of this paper is to identify the most important organizational factors associated with the implementation stage of cooperative agreements to explain performance. To do so, we have chosen trust, commitment, communication, coordination, conflict, control and dependence as key organizational factors for the success of cooperative agreements and we have tested the relationships on a sample of 136 international strategic alliances belonging to the European research and development program Eureka. Results from structural equations show that communication, trust and control are the factors that most intensively and directly influence satisfaction and that conflict is the most important direct influence on evolution of the relationship. Indirectly, dependence affects satisfaction and coordination and trust affect the evolution of the relationship. This paper uses a cooperative behaviour approach which is complementary to the classic explanation of cooperation.

Key words: strategic alliances, trust, commitment, communication, coordination, alliance success, research and development, European program Eureka.
JEL classification: C30, F23, L10, 032, 052.