Strategic Alliances Business Research in North America

Over the last 30 years, industry and academia have paid close attention to strategic relationships. However, due to rapid technological evolution, saturated marketplaces, business globalisation on the one hand and market de-globalisation on the other (as evidenced by Brexit and the trade war between the United States and China, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Ukraine war), the strategic environment of businesses is rapidly changing. Fundamental and quick changes in the wider environment demand a study of theoretical and practical insights from previous and current studies in order to investigate the new difficulties, dilemmas, and paradoxes of strategic alliances.

This special issue aims to provide a venue for researchers to explore the assumptions behind existing theory beyond simply "gap-spotting" or "gap-filling". This special issue contains four very interesting literature review pieces that delve deeper into the phenomenon and explore the opportunities, issues, and paradoxes of strategic alliances while employing alternative theoretical perspectives, methodological approaches, and interpretations to address issues of managing strategic alliances and maximising returns in the new strategic context.Over the last three decades, strategic partnerships have received significant attention from industry and academics (e.g., Child et al. 2019; Christoffersen 2013; Das 2006; Devlin & Bleackley 1988; Gomes et al. 2016; He et al. 2020; Mesquita et al. 2017; Ryan-Charleton et al. 2022).

Theoretical, conceptual, and empirical publications have all attempted to investigate strategic alliance development, maintenance, and utilization

While offering incremental understanding of the phenomenon, most of the previous work has been based on traditional theoretical assumptions including (but not limited to) transaction cost economics (Judge and Dooley 2006; Williamson 1981), the resource-based view of the firm (Barney 1991), resource-dependence theory (Pfeffer & Salancik 1978), the knowledge-based view of the firm (Grant 1996), social capital theory (Koka & Prescott 2002), agency theory (Ross 1973), and dyn However, these theoretical underpinnings are mostly based on assumptions created in a prior era, when free trade, market development, and globalization were the norm, and the information technology boom had not yet occurred. Fundamental and quick changes in the larger environment need a study of theoretical and practical insights from previous and current studies—to investigate the new problems, issues, and paradoxes of strategic alliances.

The concept of a strategic alliance is multi-dimensional, and it represents a broad array of strategic partnerships across inter-firm/inter-organizational boundaries with many different alliance types or arrangements (Koka & Prescott 2002), ranging from joint ventures (Kogut 1988), franchising and licensing (Combs et al. 2011), business networks (Gulati et al. 2000; Min & Mitsuhashi 2012), public-private partnerships (Hart 2003), vertical supplier-buyer alliances (C New alliance models are rapidly evolving as technologies such as data analytics, the internet of things, and cloud computing advance and become more widely adopted. Blockchain, smart contract technologies (Cong 2018; He et al. 2020), and even artificial intelligence (Dubey et al. 2021) offer more flexible, ad hoc, and even virtual partnerships.

This is the case of newly emerging concentric strategic alliances between manufacturing firms and Knowledge Intensive Business Service (KIBS) firms that are being used as a means of integrated product-service innovation, where service feedback and analytics facilitate technology, knowledge, and resource transfer across collaborating firms (Bustinza et al. 2019), particularly for firms competing in global markets (Vendrell-Herrero et al. 2018). Cooperative alliance company formats are also becoming more popular as shared economy principles gain traction. An example is the web of partnerships involving government agencies, research institutes, manufacturing firms, and venture capitalists in business ecosystems that are developing hydrogen-based fuel uses. Complex inter-firm interactions have the potential to provide large benefits for firms, but they can also introduce a variety of relationship risks (e.g., Gallear et al. 2015; Nooteboom et al. 1997).

As a result, alternative alliance formations, structures, and governance mechanisms have created new issues and paradoxes for businesses

such as whether to form strategic alliances, which strategic partners to choose, how to manage alliance coevolution in rapidly changing environments, and how to dismantle alliances if they fail.The strategic environment of businesses is rapidly changing as a result of rapid technological evolution, saturated marketplaces, business globalization on the one hand, and market de-globalization on the other (as evidenced by Brexit and the trade war between the United States and China, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Ukraine conflict). The new strength of emerging economies (such as the BRIC countries) and the resulting increase in the number and power of multinational firms from those markets has challenged many businesses' strategic visions for international cooperative strategies, particularly when companies from emerging economies have very different conceptions than their western counterparts (Brouthers et al. 1995; Dong & Glaister 2007).

The 2008 financial crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Ukraine war have all altered the shape of global inter-firm collaboration structures; this is compounded by the growing importance of strategic agility, flexibility, and resilience, as well as the sustainability agenda adopted by firms around the world (He et al. 2020). Furthermore, the urgent need to address institutional failures in dealing with major crises such as climate change, environmental degradation, pandemics, migration, and the food and energy crisis has encouraged collaboration between public and private sectors (e.g., Park & Chung 2021; Wan et al. 2022). Such alliances allow enterprises to not only contribute their skills and resources, but also to seize new possibilities by bridging institutional gaps (Wang et al. 2022). For these reasons, there is a greater need than ever for modern businesses and academics to reconsider classic models of alliance and relationship coordination.

Overall, the fundamental assumptions underlying strategic alliances are quickly evolving (He et al. 2020)

Although research is beginning to address this changing landscape and investigate the implications of the new pressures mentioned above (e.g., Arranz et al. 2017; Balboni et al. 2018; Christoffersen 2013; He et al. 2020; Inkpen & Tsang 2016; Mindruta et al. 2016; Pangarkar 2007), a forum for debate, extending, and challenging existing perspectives is urgently required to account for the changing nature of strategic alliances in rapidly evolving strategic environments. This special issue aims to provide such a venue for scholars to explore the assumptions underlying existing theory beyond 'gap-spotting' or 'gap-filling' (see also Alvesson & Sandberg, 2011). It intends to provide a significant opportunity for the development of original research topics and, as a result, intriguing and persuasive theories to guide and strengthen strategic alliance decision-making in response to the rapidly changing strategic scenario.This special issue contains four very interesting literature review pieces that delve deeper into the phenomenon and explore the opportunities, issues, and paradoxes of strategic alliances while employing alternative theoretical perspectives, methodological approaches, and interpretations to address issues of managing strategic alliances and maximizing returns in the new strategic context.

Vurro et al. (2023) cite growing evidence of the failure of isolated methods in the face of systemic concerns like climate change and poverty. The paper questions whether an alliance management capability (AMC) perspective can fully explain variation in collaboration effectiveness, implying that initial enthusiasm for the promise of sustainability-oriented collaborations has been dampened by evidence of the complexity of successfully managing such collaborations. The authors take a problematization method, attempting to uncover the fundamental assumptions behind the AMC design. To determine whether existing sustainability-oriented collaboration research integrates or challenges mainstream AMC theory, the paper employs a systematic literature review protocol to collect and synthesize existing research on capabilities developed for, during, and in response to sustainability-oriented collaborations. The authors incorporate a capability-based lens into their study of sustainability-oriented collaboration, claiming that the AMC construct is still required in the setting of sustainability-oriented collaboration to explain variation in collaboration effectiveness.