Strategic Alliance And Alliance Management Applications

Since 1980s, strategic alliances have being widely used forms by many enterprises from various industries because of the globalization of economy and rapid pace of technical change. Nowadays, strategic alliances have become one of the most important strategies for improving competitiveness, achieving accelerating development and entering the newly opened markets. So it is very important for China's enterprises, especially those whose competitiveness is comparatively weak, to realize and utilize this strategy. This paper states the concept, forms and theoretical reasons of strategic alliances and analyzes the role of strategic alliance in expanding economic scale and strengthening competitiveness for China's enterprises by combing the current practices of alliances by these firms. This paper consists of five chapters: Chapter I: The Understanding of Strategic Alliances. This chapter discusses the definition and features of strategic alliances, and then makes a comparison between the alliances and mergers and acquisitions. Chapter II: Forms of Strategic Alliances. This chapter discusses different forms of strategic alliances in accordance with the relationships between the enterprises and whether involved with equity arrangement. Chapter III: Theoretical Explanations of Strategic Alliances. First, this chapter provides theoretical explanations of strategic alliances from the views of the transaction cost theory and the resource-based theory. Then, the chapter develops a framework for deciding between the different forms of strategic alliances. Chapter IV: The Practices of Strategic Alliances by China's Enterprises. This chapter studies the practices of strategic alliance by China's enterprises and identifies some problems in the practices. Chapter V: The Role of Strategy in the alliances. Beginning with the analyzing the role of strategy in the alliances, this chapter puts forward four elements of strategy management and explores the significance of alliance strategies for China's enterprises.