This study investigates five successful cases of nondominant firms’ learning with their powerful alliance partners and offers a unique perspective for elucidating how organizational politics affects nondominant firms. Based on a qualitative study, this study proposes a four-stage process model that indicates nondominant firms’ progressing from one stage to the next one, moving them from interorganizational learning to intraorganizational learning. To promote or resist either exploitation or exploration in nondominant firms, key interest groups exercise their power bases on one another in two ways: competing against a disapproved interest group or collaborating with an approved interest group. By enquiring about the interplay between politics and learning, the study reveals the effect of organizational politics on the strategic change of nondominant firms and offers valuable implications to both scholars and managers.
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