International Strategic Alliances

International strategic alliances (ISAs) are considered one of the major pillars of international business (IB) as they constitute hybrid strategies positioned between market and hierarchy in a dynamic global economy. Despite rich research, the complexity of strategic alliances in an international context with multiple levels of interactions across borders and time is underappreciated.

Due to the great variety of collaborative types, ranging from ad hoc agreements to equity joint ventures (JVs), there is a lack of a clear definition of an ISA. For this entry, we rely on Nielsen and Gudergan’s (2012) definition: “ISA is an interfirm collaboration over a given international economic space and time for the attainment of mutually defined goals” (p.558). This definition implies that at least one partner is headquartered outside the alliance’s country of operation, or the collaboration has significant levels of operation in more than one country.