Global Business Alliances: Theory and Practice

Forging business alliances can vitalize corporate strategies. This book is a road map to the concepts and theories underlying successful business alliances in four critical industries: automobile manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, airlines, and telecommunications. Dr. Culpan offers the essentials of global partnering as seen from a strategic management viewpoint. He examines joint ventures, non-equity alliances, and business options designed to give a competitive edge over other allied firms. New conceptual models help to clarify various strategies and collaborative processes. By comparing the four major industries—and specific companies in each—this study explores not only the uniqueness of its subjects, but also the common grounds of various multinationals. Through key insights and ideas, the possibilities and realities of corporate alliances begin to emerge. Attention is also paid to the decision-making process as it relates cooperative ventures, as well as to the inevitable managerial challenges of forming, and managing, strategic alliances. The result is an astute analysis ideal for teachers, students, and strategists seeking fresh insights into the workings and benefits of corporate alliance.

Table of Contents:
Preface Introduction Global Business Competition and Alliances Theoretical Foundations International Business Strategy and Alliances Equity Alliances Non-Equity Alliances Global Alliances in the Auto Manufacturing Industry Global Alliances in the Pharmaceutical Industry Global Alliances in the Airline Industry Global Alliances in the Telecommunications Industry Alliance Management Index

About the Author :
REFIK CULPAN is Professor of Management and International Business in the School of Business Administration, Pennsylvania State University. He holds a doctorate degree from New York University and has had extensive experience, not only in the academic community but as a consultant to various businesses. Dr. Culpan is a regular contributor to the journals of his fields, and coeditor of a previous book for Quorum, Transformation Management in Postcommunist Countries (1995, with Brij Nino Kumar.)

Review :
An expert in the field of international business, Culpan (Pennsylvania State Univ.) explains in this clearly written book the theoretical background of strategic alliances, including transaction cost theory, the resource-based view, the industrial organization model, game theory, and organizational learning. He describes the various types of alliances, including joint venture equity alliances and nonequity alliances such as licensing, franchising, management contracts, turnkey operations, subcontracting, supplier partnerships, marketing agreements, technical partnerships, and joint production. The book is unique in presenting separate chapters on global strategic alliances in four specific industries: automobile manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, airlines, and telecommunications. Culpan emphasizes the strategic importance of alliances for multinational companies. He describes how to manage alliances successfully, including how to evaluate the need for an alliance, selecting a partner, what to consider when choosing an equity or nonequity alliance, and how managers should control and evaluate the performance of an alliance. Diagrams and tables of data explain the concepts; extensive chapter endnotes. Appropriate for managers, consultants, researchers, and professors and students of international business, lower-division undergraduate and up. [a]n authoritative work on global business alliances….In summary, the book will appeal to both students and practitioners of strategic business alliances. Researchers interested in the global business alliances will find that this book provides rich treatment of theoretical/conceptual foundations and interlocking variable effecting successful inter-firm partnerships leading to competitive advantage. Academic researchers can create many well-thought-out hypotheses from this book for empirical testing. Also managers who would like to learn the dynamics of inter-firm collaboration will benefit immensely from the industry examples provided and managerial guidelines offered. Well-written, conceptualized, and extensively documented, ^I Global Business Alliance: Theory and Practice^R will be considerable interest to students of inter-firm collaboration as well as to corporate business executives who want to apply the lessons learned from such partnerships in the four industries studied in this book. Culpan's discussions of research joint ventures and other forms of technological diffusion should be of particular interest…