Alliances and Information Technology: Fundamentals and State of the Art

Abstract

This chapter is organized into three sections. In the first section we briefly define some basic concepts about alliances, their attributes, the differences between them and traditional structures, and the types of alliance. The second section analyzes the state of the art in the literature on alliances. We stress the conceptual evolution in organizational design and the main theoretical approaches explaining alliance formation. The final section analyzes the role of information technology (IT) in the formation and running of alliances. In this respect, we stress the impact of IT on organizational structures in general, and on inter-organizational relationships in particular, with these relationships being based on the so-called inter-organizational systems.