Over the past few decades, alliance and networks have been generally examined individually. This Handbook sheds new light on this research by combining the two topics and focuses on highlighting their similarities. The expert contributors discuss topics surrounding the state-of-the-art in alliance and network research such as organizing opportunities in international entrepreneurship; transaction costs in alliances and joint ventures; diaspora networks; and national culture and international alliances. They go on to look at conceptual developments relating to born globals; subsidiary performance; internationalisation; and knowledge transfer and organisational learning. Finally, they present empirical evidence of international alliances and networks. They combine diverse types of studies including literature reviews, conceptual papers and empirical studies in order to provide the reader with a comprehensive understanding of the topic. Researchers with an interest in joint ventures and alliance and networks, along with students and academics of international business will find this book to be a valuable resource. Contributors: S. Andersson, U. Andersson, A. Arslan, G.B. Awuah, P Ekman, M. Elo, C. Erixon, N. Evers, P.N. Ghauri, M. Hilmersson, M. Hsia-Wen Ho, M. Johanson, V. Kaartemo, J. Larimo, C. Lopez-Duarte, H. Lundberg, T. Mainela, H. Makkonen, M. Marinov, S.T. Marinova, L.-G. Mattsson, H. Merchant, K.E. Meyer, N. Mirc, N. Nummela, R. Olkkonen, U.F. Ott, S. Papaioannou, E. Pernu, V. Puhakka, P.A. Ryan, S. Saarenketo, A. Salmi, P. Servais, A. Smith, A. Thyr, L. Torkkeli, P. Very, M.M. Vidal-Suarez, Y. Wang

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In recent years entrepreneurship has become one of the most popular fields of research in management studies. As the subject has broadened, increasing attention has been paid to the behavioural aspects of different practices to identify and pursue entrepreneurial opportunities. This timely book analyses three key strands of contemporary research into entrepreneurial behaviour: intention, education and orientation. It offers novel insights that can be applied to foster entrepreneurial activities in different settings. The chapters in the book are divided into three parts. The contributors first focus on the entrepreneur as an individual and offer three innovative yet complementary approaches to entrepreneurial intentions. They go on to consider how entrepreneurial behaviour can be trained and learned, providing a much-needed theoretical anchor to pedagogical approaches in entrepreneurship. Finally, they cover entrepreneurial behaviour at the organizational level. They expertly tackle the popular topic of entrepreneurial orientation through novel empirical studies with diverse methodologies and multiple levels of analysis. Researchers and advanced students in management and entrepreneurship will benefit from the state-of-the-art analysis and innovative approaches presented. Entrepreneurship educators and policymakers will also find this book to be stimulating reading, where they can find suggestions for an evidence-based practice. Contributors include: R.F. Belchior, A. Benedito de Oliveira Junior, R.C. Bernardes, A. Caetano, S.F. Costa, M.J. de Oliveira, A.J. Frederiks, A. Garofano, G. Hagg, I. Jaen, I. Kozlinska, F. Linan, T. Lynn, R. Lyons, C. Mac an Bhaird, T. Mets, R. Mohd, X. Neumeyer, D. Politis, A. Riviezzo, K. Roigas, S.C. Santos

Business Networks and Strategic Alliances in China addresses how knowledge transfer and innovation are interwoven within complex networks and how social capital contributes to the acquisition of crucial resources and business success in multi-type enterprises in China. The book explains how China's remarkable global economic impact in recent years has developed from foreign investment and that the dominant vehicle for economic development has been the International Joint Venture (IJV) between Chinese manufacturers and overseas enterprises. Strict guidelines on FDI mean that foreign firms have been obliged to form relationships with Chinese organizations. The authors illustrate that as a direct result, the quality and nature of the relations, networks, and alliances forged is crucial for the success of Chinese businesses. A sophisticated empirical, theoretical, comparative and historical guide to understanding the nature of business networks in China is provided by this work. As such, it makes a distinct contribution to the furtherance of evidence-based management theory and practice and will strongly appeal to those with an interest in management, international business and Asian studies.

Within the last decades, universities are increasingly expected and measured by their direct engagement in collaborations beyond academia. Exploring the potential that lies in university-business collaborations, the present anthology attends to the dilemmas, dualities, and challenges that follow such collaborations, especially in the academic traditions of the social sciences and humanities. Each contribution investigates how the human perspective - a perspective that highlights how complex knowledge and a deep understanding of human everyday life - enriches companies' processes, products, services, and ideas. Some chapters focus on collaborations between researchers and business practitioners, others focus on teaching examples involving students in the collaborative work with businesses and organisations, and again others contribute with more theoretical considerations. By gathering hands-on experiences, the book provides readers with inspirations, reflections on, and insights into university-business collaborations. This book, therefore, is intended for researchers within the humanities and social sciences, who want to get a deeper understanding of the practice of such collaborations. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) promise much and present an exciting policy option. Yet as this Handbook reveals there is still much debate about the meaning of partnership, and the degree to which potential advantages are in fact being delivered. In this timely Handbook, leading scholars from around the world explore the challenges presented by infrastructure PPPs, and contemplate what lies ahead as governments balance the need to provide innovative new infrastructure against the requirement for good public governance. This Handbook builds on a range of exciting theoretical lenses that span several disciplinary boundaries. It presents innovative insights and informed perspectives from an international base of empirical evidence. This essential Handbook will prove an invaluable reference work for academics, advanced post-graduate students and commentators of PPPs, as well as professionals, infrastructure regulators and government policy advisors.

Over the last 30 years, partnership has received growing attention across a range of sectors and disciplines. Widely used to describe a relationship in which different actors pool their resources, knowledge and skills to address common problems, partnership is currently presented as central to the achievement of more inclusive and sustainable development. Rejecting "one size fits all" approaches, and mindful of different understandings of the term, Partnership and Transformation: The Promise of Multi-stakeholder Collaboration in Context, which is designed to appeal to both academics and practitioners alike, argues that partnership must be understood in relation to specific contexts and the added value it may offer for individuals, organisations and wider society. It is further suggested that the transformational potential of partnership rests critically upon a move away from purely instrumental considerations of its worth to a deeper appreciation of its intrinsic value as a process based on interpersonal relationships. A stronger balance between pragmatic and reflective dimensions of partnership can, the author claims, enhance opportunities for meaningful deliberation and productive conflict and contribute to the systems change needed for a global citizenship that embraces human well-being and stewardship of the planet.

Today's universities are confronted with questions about the increasing scale of corporatisation and commercialisation, as well as their decreasing activity in the field of the social mission, i.e., engagement in the real problems of ordinary people, local communities and society at large. As a remedy for this problem, this book proposes using action research as a means of shaping collaboration between universities and their stakeholders, taking into account related benefits, opportunities and challenges. In this context, we understand action research somewhat more broadly, as universities' conducting useful research that becomes a domain of their social mission. The core message of this volume is the development of a cooperation process in which the university leaves its "ivory tower," builds relationships with its stakeholders and, as a result, engages more effectively in social life. In this book, readers will find an original perspective on action research, the application of which enables mutual benefits for universities and their stakeholders. It presents the authors' original model of cooperation based on the AR approach and concrete examples of successful cooperation between universities and their stakeholders. Step by step, it illustrates how to initiate cooperation, conduct useful scientific research and together with stakeholders bring about changes in social life. This book will be of value to university managers, academics, students of social, management and economic sciences, as well as managers and specialists employed in organisations from various sectors that may be interested in cooperation with universities. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

Advances a novel analytical framework along with highly original empirical work - will set the agenda for research in this area moving forward. Measures the effectiveness of PPP's in governance, in a way that previous books have failed to do. The multifaceted framework for disaggregating the meaning of effectiveness (and for measuring it) will be relevant well beyond the study of PPPs alone - the book will therefore be useful for those studying other varieties of cross-border governance as well.

Joint Venture Strategies: Design, Bargaining, and the Law is a thoughtful approach to negotiating workable joint ventures. Significant detail is devoted to performing appropriate preparatory activities to improve the range of terms that could be considered in forging contractual agreements. The book sets realistic expectations for firms who might cooperate with partners by delineating the pitfalls of venturing and anticipating the posturing of potential parties with the objective of creating synergistic returns for all. Company examples inform their explanations of how to structure controls and share the benefits of working with partners. Special detail is devoted to the needs of venture capital and private equity investors. The book is necessary homework to be read before courting attractive opportunities through joint ventures.' - Kathryn Rudie Harrigan, Columbia Business School, USAlthough they have the potential to create synergies, joint ventures by their nature contain inherent risk. Therefore, each partner in a joint venture needs to incentivize each other in order to maximize its own payoff. Extensive pre-contractual and post-contractual bargaining is essential. This book provides successful bargaining strategies from the point of view of each partner company. Using a game theoretical framework to analyze joint venture strategy, it describes practical and legal issues that arise when creating synergies and incentive bargaining in a joint venture. With a particular focus on intellectual property law, including analysis based on many real cases, the book covers issues relating to creating synergies, corporate law issues of conflicts of interest, and antitrust law issues relating to cooperation between independent companies. Theoretically new and practically useful, Joint Venture Strategies will appeal to academics and practicing lawyers. From a corporate perspective, this book is essential for successful joint venture planning and strategy.

This book gives students a new perspective on entrepreneurial venturing in an international context. By analyzing the dynamics in international companies, they will be armed with the skills they need to build successful strategies for entering new international markets. Williams presents a framework built around four contexts for international venturing: headquarters-driven through internal capabilities; subsidiary-driven through peripheral capabilities; headquarters-driven through external capabilities; and subsidiary-driven though external capabilities. Through this, students gain insight into the conditions that enable venturing in different types of MNEs, the mechanisms by which MNEs pursue international opportunities, and the leadership and managerial challenges of developing entrepreneurial capabilities across borders. Following a definition and analysis of each context, the book synthesizes the outcomes in an integrative way, providing implications for strategic leaders in international firms as well as for researchers and students. These contexts are used to frame the literature and engage with eight topical cases, which are also published in full in the Appendix of the book. With case studies from around the world that focus both on smaller and larger enterprises, Venturing in International Firms will give students of international entrepreneurship, corporate entrepreneurship and international business an edge when venturing internationally in the real world.

Over the past few decades, alliance and networks have been generally examined individually. This Handbook sheds new light on this research by combining the two topics and focuses on highlighting their similarities. The expert contributors discuss topics surrounding the state-of-the-art in alliance and network research such as organizing opportunities in international entrepreneurship; transaction costs in alliances and joint ventures; diaspora networks; and national culture and international alliances. They go on to look at conceptual developments relating to born globals; subsidiary performance; internationalisation; and knowledge transfer and organisational learning. Finally, they present empirical evidence of international alliances and networks. They combine diverse types of studies including literature reviews, conceptual papers and empirical studies in order to provide the reader with a comprehensive understanding of the topic. Researchers with an interest in joint ventures and alliance and networks, along with students and academics of international business will find this book to be a valuable resource. Contributors: S. Andersson, U. Andersson, A. Arslan, G.B. Awuah, P Ekman, M. Elo, C. Erixon, N. Evers, P.N. Ghauri, M. Hilmersson, M. Hsia-Wen Ho, M. Johanson, V. Kaartemo, J. Larimo, C. Lopez-Duarte, H. Lundberg, T. Mainela, H. Makkonen, M. Marinov, S.T. Marinova, L.-G. Mattsson, H. Merchant, K.E. Meyer, N. Mirc, N. Nummela, R. Olkkonen, U.F. Ott, S. Papaioannou, E. Pernu, V. Puhakka, P.A. Ryan, S. Saarenketo, A. Salmi, P. Servais, A. Smith, A. Thyr, L. Torkkeli, P. Very, M.M. Vidal-Suarez, Y. Wang

By bringing together their respective competencies and resources for the greater good, governments, business, civil society and multilateral agencies have been seeking innovative ways to work together to respond to the myriad global challenges of our time: the impact of climate change; human security; the prevention, care and treatment of HIV/AIDS and other major diseases; the generation of new investment, entrepreneurship and employment; and financing for development. The appetite for such partnerships appears strong. Over 90% of corporate executives responding to a World Economic Forum survey felt that future partnerships between business, government and civil society would play either a major role or some role in addressing key development challenges. This trend will only be increased by the Western financial crisis and the retreat of the state from many areas of societal concern.

Innovation studies and partnering/collaborative alliances are rapidly growing areas of interest. Originally combining the two areas, this book examines the role of business partnering as a pathway to innovation for small and medium enterprises - SMEs. This text outlines global and regional trends, focusing in particular on the role of Poland and Eastern Europe as an emerging region for new innovative ideas, how innovation is promoted in the United States, and how it is facilitated in Japan. It assesses the reasons why American SMEs are significantly ahead of their European counterparts in the fields of research and development investment and innovation, and demonstrates how business partnering can assist in increasing research and development investment, profit, finding new suppliers and aiding growth. In addition, the book shows how business partners can cut the costs of doing research for innovation and analyzes the threat that poorly constructed and over-burdensome regulation and bureaucracy pose to innovation. This book is a timely contribution to the literature on both innovation and business partnering in Japan, Europe and the United States.

This book is designed to illuminate the features of cross-sector partnerships that make them powerful vehicles to drive social change. Partnerships across market sectors, involving for-profit, non-profit, and government entities, work because they leverage the advantages of each type of organization to arrive at novel solutions to social problems. Unlike previous work that has discussed cross-sector, multi-sector, or public-private partnerships at a conceptual level, this book scours the existing literature and explores real-life examples to demonstrate the practical characteristics that render these partnerships effective at tackling obstreperous social problems. The authors delve into the key formative features of cross-sector partnerships such as leadership, motivation, cooperative capabilities, and arrive at distinct characteristics that drive performance. The authors lay out a succinct roadmap for creating and maintaining viable cross-sector social partnerships, with instructive real-life examples that highlight how these partnerships can be executed effectively.

Although published thirty years ago this book accurately predicted that joint-ventures would become an increasingly prominent feature on the corporate landscape. This book, based on the experience of managers in both successful and unsuccessful joint ventures has been written expressly to help managers improve the performance of their joint ventures. It discusses the area of joint venture design and management including the management of ventures between corporations and government bodies.

Despite the pressure for local councils to follow the lead of the private sector and develop shared service and partnership arrangements, the barriers in terms of culture, differences in priorities across councils and lack of experience are formidable - yet this is the most likely source of meeting government targets for reduced overheads and improved organizational effectiveness. By using extensive case studies drawn from across local councils in England, Ray Tomkinson explains the implications of sharing service delivery, addresses concerns about loss of control and accountability, and demonstrates the potential advantages. He shows how to set up collaborative ventures, formal partnerships, shared service centres or special purpose vehicles, while pointing out possible pitfalls, thus enabling senior managers to follow all the necessary project steps to create an appropriate shared service. It seeks to examine the evidence of the cost, effectiveness and quality improvements achieved from sharings. This ground-breaking book has been written for everyone in local government; it explores the political and cultural barriers, and legislative/legal framework for joint workings, explains how to find an appropriate governance vehicle, and how to gain the commitment of partners. It deals with political and managerial concerns, risk aversion and parochial issues, and the possible impact on the reputation and performance of both sharers. Shared Services in Local Government is the only comprehensive study for the UK and it will ensure any public sector organization pursuing this route is able to approach the task of creating a shared service with a real understanding of the issues involved.

Innovation studies and partnering/collaborative alliances are rapidly growing areas of interest. Originally combining the two areas, this book examines the role of business partnering as a pathway to innovation for small and medium enterprises - SMEs. This text outlines global and regional trends, focusing in particular on the role of Poland and Eastern Europe as an emerging region for new innovative ideas, how innovation is promoted in the United States, and how it is facilitated in Japan. It assesses the reasons why American SMEs are significantly ahead of their European counterparts in the fields of research and development investment and innovation, and demonstrates how business partnering can assist in increasing research and development investment, profit, finding new suppliers and aiding growth. In addition, the book shows how business partners can cut the costs of doing research for innovation and analyzes the threat that poorly constructed and over-burdensome regulation and bureaucracy pose to innovation. This book is a timely contribution to the literature on both innovation and business partnering in Japan, Europe and the United States.

The competence-based perspective on strategy and management emerged in the 1990s as a new approach to developing strategy and management theory and practice. In the past decade, the focus on organizational competences -- and the resources, capabilities, and processes that create competences -- has provided a highly productive "broad church" for theory development, research, and practice in both strategic and general management.

Authored by a multidisciplinary group of scholars and practitioners working within the competence perspective, the papers in this volume contribute to developing a better theoretical and practical understanding of interfirm interactions that significantly affect an organization's competences. The papers present both theoretical developments and empirical research based on a variety of case studies and other research in diverse industrial and geographical contexts.

The papers in this volume develop three themes. Part I includes papers that address the key issues of managing activities in an organization's competence building and leveraging processes that span the boundaries of two organizations. The papers in Part II investigate the role of networks and strategic alliances in competence building and leveraging processes. Part III presents papers that investigate competitive interactions between firms in their competence leveraging activities.

Open Innovation Through Strategic Alliances demonstrates the vital role and applications of strategic alliances between firms and research organizations in creating and applying knowledge for the development of new products, technologies, or business models.

Hailed by some as fundamental pillar of global governance, and criticized by others as manifestation of 'top-down globalism', multi-stakeholder partnerships have become the new mantra of policy-makers around the globe. However, our understanding of what drives success and failure in these hybrid institutions remains scetchy and incomplete. This book will introduce a production theory of partnering which describes how the contributions actors add to a partnership are translated into results. The objective of this new perspective on collaboration is to make sense of the complex dynamics partnerships face and to derive fundamental propositions on how governance structures should be designed to make partnerships succeed.

"This book is a lively and hands-on exploration of corporate-NGO alliances. It offers original insight to understand why alliances exist and to what end. It also looks into the asymmetries between partners and dwells on three crucial aspects of alliances management: alliance capacity development, stakeholder involvement and alliance metrics"--Provided by publisher.

The Brand-Driven CEO demonstrates how senior leadership can use their brand to align and guide the behaviors, decisions, and operations of their entire organization in order to drive value. David Kincaid delivers practical assessments and game plans for senior executives and managers across functional areas, clarifying the confusion between brand and marketing management. He introduces the "New 4Ps" of brand management: People, Process, Intellectual Property, and Partnerships. This paradigm shift equips business leaders with a new approach to managing growth, profitability, risk, and sustainable value. Using real-life, current case studies from today's fastest growing and most valuable brands - including Starbucks, Apple, and BMW - this book reveals the critical importance of managing big businesses as integrated business systems. The Brand-Driven CEO includes criteria to conduct your own brand self-assessment and a stepby-step roadmap that can be applied to help transform your brand and its management.

This is a definitive study of partnership at work in the UK, with extensive surveys and interviews in organizations from the finance, NHS and local government sectors. The authors challenge conventional assumptions about the mutual interest associated with partnership, and find evidence of work intensification where partnership has been introduced.

Research and development (R & D) leads to innovation, and innovation leads to technological change. Technological change, in turn, is the primary driver of economic growth. Public/private partnerships -- cooperative relationships among industry, government, and/or universities -- leverage the efficiency of R & D and are thus a critical aspect of a nationa (TM)s innovation system.

This text is intended for upper-level undergraduate and MBA courses such as Economics and Technology, Economics of Innovation, and Economics of Science and Technology, among others. The first chapter introduces the concept of public/private research partnerships along with other concepts fundamental to an understanding of innovation and technology policy. The framework chapters (2-5) set forth an argument for the publica (TM)s role a" governmenta (TM)s role a" in innovation in general and in public/private partnership in particular. The remaining chapters (6-14) describe a number of public/private partnerships and, to the extent possible, evaluate their social impact.