Rethinking Strategic Alliances: Innovations, Challenges, and Insights

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue is dedicated to advancing our understanding of strategic alliances. For over 50 years, strategic alliances have captured the attention and minds of scholars and practitioners alike. Across disciplines and functional areas, an impressive body of knowledge has grown that informs theory and practice.

In the face of this long and rich tradition, one may still ponder over what is clearly established and known with certainty. Moreover, is this baseline knowledge properly fitted to address today’s unique challenges, emerging opportunities, and shifting landscape? Likewise, where are the enduring, critical gaps in our understanding and how should they be addressed? From classic equity joint ventures to novel cross-sector partnerships, how could the alliance phenomenon be best captured and classified? What are the familiar managerial practices and overall best practices? Are there emerging trends of significance? Have new, dominant forms of alliances and associated organizational processes surfaced? What fresh theoretical lenses and methodological approaches could shed further light on our understanding? The time may be right to “rethink” strategic alliances in a more holistic way, with an open and inquisitive mind.

The aim of this Special Issue is to bring together leading experts and researchers to reflect on and go beyond these types of questions. As a general theme, “rethinking strategic alliances” is an open invitation to look at all aspects of the collaborative phenomenon. The focus on insights, challenges, and innovations pertains to both: (1) the field of practice, what is encountered today by managers and decision makers; and (2) the literature, what scholars can identify in their work and grasp of the body of knowledge in this space. For researchers, expanding on these themes may translate into intended contributions in terms of:

1. Insights. To revisit the extent literature with the aim of extracting and consolidating what we know; to offer roadmaps on how to navigate the phenomenon; to review and reflect on the evolution of the field and literature; to single out known limitations and shortcomings that are yet to be addressed; to capture and offer views on what is soundly established and significant; and, of course, to share the results and implications from current research undertakings.
2. Challenges. To push the boundaries of knowledge related to strategic alliances by either: (1) challenging what we think we know; (2) answering the call to address prevalent research gaps; or (3) tackling difficult questions and opportunity/problem areas.
3. Innovations. To identify and anticipate evolving patterns in strategic alliances strategies and the underlying competitive/collaborative landscape, pertinent managerial competencies, best practices, and research needs and orientation. Then, to act on it with original work.

For this Special Issue, we seek contributions that speak to various aspects of strategic alliances and levels of analysis:

• Alliances themselves (raison d’être, formation, types, management, longevity, termination, rebirth, risk assessment, performance, impact).
• Interactions between partners (dynamics in coopetition, integrational elements, negotiations and conflict management, knowledge transfer issues, cross-sectorial angles, cross-cultural perspectives).
• Relations to the greater context (international and geographical perspectives, industry-specific views, functional area comparisons, political–legal–environmental–social–technological aspects, interplay with parent organizations, alliance-centric vs. alliance-poor parent organizations; alliance portfolio management and leveraging, rise and nurturing of collaborative know-how).

The Special Issue aims to examine strategic alliances with a fresh look. We welcome diverse perspectives, the use of classic as well as novel theoretical underpinnings, and variety in methodological approaches (both qualitative and quantitative). We seek original research articles, reviews, comparative and longitudinal studies, as well as compelling case studies.

We ask that, prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of about 500 words summarizing their intended contribution. Please send these to the Special Issue Editor Prof. Dr. Bernard Simonin (Bernard.simonin@tufts.edu) and copy the Administrative Sciences Editorial Office (coraline.chen@mdpi.com). The abstracts will be reviewed to ensure that they are within the scope of this Special Issue.

Prof. Dr. Bernard Simonin
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the Special Issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Administrative Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.