Strategic alliance research in the era of digital transformation: perspectives on future research

Abstract

The emerging digital transformation in the 21st century is rapidly and significantly changing the business landscape. The fast-changing activities, expectations and new modes of collaboration suggest it is time to review the current theoretical insights from Strategic Alliance (SA) research, which are based on assumptions from a different era. We therefore aim to stimulate multidisciplinary debate and theoretical reflections to better understand emerging paradoxes and challenges that contemporary firms face in the formation, evolution and dissolution of strategic alliances. Specifically, we offer alternative visions of SA research and suggest fresh applications or supplements of existing theoretical perspectives and research methods that can better address research questions that are emerging from an era of digital transformation.