Authors: Lars-Gunnar Mattsson; Susanne Hertz
International strategic alliances is an important phenomenon in contemporary markets. Theirexistence is an aspect of “collective competition”. The alliances undergo changes in terms ofmembership (entry, exit) and degree of integration between the members. We analyse thedynamics of alliances with a “markets-as-networks” view, seeing alliances as embedded in awider, dynamic network context, where strategic actions by firms initiate changes in thenetwork structure, i.e. how firms are directly and indirectly connected to each other ascooperating or competing. Two cases from the freight forwarding industry are used toillustrate our analysis. We formulate a number of propositions pertaining tointernationalization of the firm and more specifically to the dynamics of strategic alliances.As both internationalization of the firm and of a market have reached high levels ofinternational interdependencies, strategic actions by individual firms are to a great extentconditioned by such interdependencies.
Journal: ( – )
Web Address:
Publish Year: 2001
Conference: Oslo, Norway (2001)