An increasing amount of international business and public policy activities are being created and conducted through one or more collaborative partnerships between entities, whether they be companies, NGOs, government organizations, universities, competitors, or supplier/channel partners. This course teaches students about planning, negotiating, and managing cross-border partnerships, joint ventures and alliances, including both the strategic reasons why these relationships are formed as well as the problems of making them work well. The course is a cross-functional class, with not only an underlying marketing thrust, but also encompassing significant organizational behavior/leadership, supply chain, public policy and competitive strategy dimensions in both for-profit and social impact/non-profit settings. The course is for students who wish to bring about value and solutions to organizational problems through collaboration between entities. It is a decision-making, active-learning, participative, discussion-based, case analysis course that focuses on maximum exposure of students to real-life partnering situations and decisions in a variety of different enterprise settings. Course value has been found not only by MBA students and MBA-dual degree candidates, but also those in MPA, IPS, and IEP programs.

Topic 1. Determining Why, When, Where and How to Ally

Topic 2. Partnering Criteria and the Search for Joint Venture Partners

Topic 3. Structuring, Establishing and Negotiating the Alliance

Topic 4. Managing Performance, Conflict and Change of the Alliance

Topic 5. Hybrid and Multi-Party Collaborations

Topic 6. Continuity, Acquisition, Termination and Dissolution

Topic 7. Collaborating and Global Strategies

Prerequisites: GSIPM student status.