“Network Advantage: How to Unlock Value from Your Alliances and Partnerships” is written for MBA, Masters of management, and Executive Education programs. It can be used in core strategy courses or electives on corporate strategy innovation, or strategic alliances. The book offers a step-by-step guide for how to build network advantages.

• The impact of individual alliances, partnerships and their portfolios on the firms’ competitive advantage (Introduction, Chapters 1 & 2).
• The role of complementarity and compatibility between partners for the formation of successful alliances and partnerships (Chapter 3)
• Differential impact of the “hub and spoke” alliance portfolios and “integrated” portfolios on competitive advantage. These represent inter-organizational networks rich in structural holes and dense ties, respectively (Chapters 4 & 5).
• The role of organizational status in competitive advantage (Chapters 6 & 7)
• Should the firm build its own alliance portfolio or join another firm’s network (Chapter 8)
• How to improve information flows inside the firm to attain competitive advantage from alliances and partnerships (Chapter 10).

Most chapters introduce tools for how to develop a collaboration strategy. These are compiled at the end of the book. A short introductory video is available on youtube:

Contributed by Andrew Shipilov