| As both a kind of strategy and a sort of organization form, strategic alliances (SA) are becoming more and more important with the development of science and economy. For a long time, literatures on SAs mostly focused on the reduction of transaction cost and the complementarity of resources. With the development of knowledge economy, knowledge is becoming the main source of competitive advantage. Teece et (1997) pointed out that the advantage of a company came from its dynamic capability which in itself was a kind of tacit knowledge. They argued that the dynamic capabilities came from companies' organizational routines that developed along with specific path. The focus of this view is on the continuous learning of the organization. In 1980s, Hamel, Prahalad and Doz spent more than 5 years to make a study on 15 international SAs. They found that in the SAs set by Japanese companies and American companies, the Japanese companies always acquired much technology and competence through SAs while the American companies lost more than what they achieved. Hamel et. pointed that the reason was that Japanese companies could learn more effectively than their American partners and the latter should improve their learning ability in SAs. Based on the research of Teece et and Hamel et, this thesis applies Teece et.'s dynamic capability concept and the related organizational learning theories to explain SAs, pointing out that SAs are effective ways to develop companies' dynamic capabilities and analyzing the knowledge transfer process within SAs. The structure and analysis logic of this thesis is as follows:Chap 1 gives a brief introduction on the state, concept and category of SAs. The definition used here is a general one that follows by Lorange & Roos (1993). SAs are all kinds of hybrid structures between market and hierarchy structure. Chap 2 reviews the literatures on SAs in the history. Value chain theory (Porter, 1985) believes that through integrating resources from different taches of the value chain, SAs can achieve advantage complementarity. According to strategic gap theory (Tyjee & Osland), when there is a strategic gap between the requirement of the environment and the goal that companies can achieve, companies can acquire the needed competence through SAs. Transaction cost theory (Williamson, 1991; Teece, 1986; Casson, 1987; Coase, 1937) analyzes the advantage of SAs relative to market and hierarchy from the angle of transaction cost and management control cost reduction. All of the above theories neglect the impact that the search of knowledge and competence has on the SAs.In chap 3, dynamic capability theory and organizational learning theory are introduced to explain SAs. Teece et (1997) extended the concept of core competence given by Hamel (1990) and provided dynamic capability concept. This concept included three key factors: process, position and path. Teece et. viewed that companies' capabilities were embedded in all kinds of processes and routines which were explicitly constrained by the assets the companies held(within the company or on the market), and developed along with specific path. This view emphasizes that companies' competitive advantage lies in continuous organizational learning and building, strengthening and upgrading their core competence. There are three ways to develop core competence through learning: learning from market, learning from internal innovation and learning from SAs. SAs can overcome the problem that on the market tacit knowledge cannot be transferred. As for internal innovation, there may be core rigidities and competence traps, which SAs can avoid. Besides this, SAs also have the advantage of saving cost and time, combining differentiated competences and promoting innovation. Therefore, SAs are effective ways to develop companies' dynamic capabilities.When setting up SAs to develop company's capabilities, the critical point is the process of knowledge transfer that is increasingly emphasized but seldom studied. Chap 4 observes this process...
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