Course Schedule and Catalog

Department: Management

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Research

Credit Hours: 1

Description: STRUCTURING & MANAGING INTERNATIONAL STRATEGIC ALLIANCES ***** With an ever-growing number of industries becoming global in scope, firms are frequently involved in international strategic alliances/joint ventures for developing new technologies/products and exploring new markets. International strategic alliances/joint ventures represent simultaneously cooperative and competitive relationships between partner firms. Hence, it is unsurprising that this organization form is hard to structure and manage, and has a high rate of failure. This course seeks to provide students with the skills, knowledge, and sensitivity required to structure and manage strategic allinaces/joint ventures within a global environment. In this course, we will discuss the following topics: motivations for joining strategic alliances/joint ventures, partner selection, structuring strategic allinaces/joint ventures to meet firms' strategic objectives, control and management of alliances/joint ventures, evaluation of performance of alliances/joint ventures, and exiting alliances/joint ventures. This course will take the format of a seminar, in which students and the instructor will sit around a table to discuss the above issues. Different opinions and debates are highly encouraged. Case studies will also be used in the course to help students develop analytical and decision- making skills, and also to highlight the reality of environmental uncertainties and different strategic objectives influencing decision-making in this special context. Cases also seek to develop students' capacity to identify issues, to reason carefully through various options and imporve students' ability to manage the organizational process by which alliances/joint ventures get formed and executed. In addition to case analyses, we will also read and discuss recent articles from the business press and academic journals on issues relevant to international strategic alliances/joint ventures. Thus, students will develop historical and current, and theoretical and practical, perspectives on this important issue. ***** Instructor(s): Zhang