Alleanze strategiche e reti per la crescita e la competizione

[Autom. eng. transl.] The chapter is organized as follows. After having introduced the two fundamental guidelines along which we will move and have clarified some preliminary aspects - concerning the superimposability of the different objectives of the collaboration, the procedural and co-evolutionary nature of the alliances and the risks of failure inherent to them - we will proceed to the exposition of the best-known classification criteria for inter-company agreements. We will then examine in detail the different explanations of the collaboration choices - and, therefore, the reasons, the advantages and the risks of these choices - according to the main theoretical perspectives emerged in the literature, focusing in particular on the explanation offered by the recent knowledge-based vision of collaboration . The continuation of the chapter will be devoted to the analysis of some relevant specificities of the collaboration relations aimed at the development of technological innovation and the deepening of the main problems concerning business networks. In this last regard, we will focus on the concept of a central enterprise and on the relational skills that it is called upon to develop in order to successfully play the role of strategic center in a network of partners. Finally, we will draw the strings of the analysis carried out by deepening the relationships existing between inter-company collaboration, success and sustainability of competitive advantage, in an exquisitely resource-based perspective, to then show how the analysis of the processes of collaboration between companies can put into question some fundamental arguments of the same resource-based view, and propose the fundamental connotations of a "relational vision" of competitive advantage.