Half title page -- Praise for Strategic Alliances -- Title page -- Imprint -- Contents -- About the authors -- Foreword -- Introduction: Placing a value on your key commercial partnerships -- Chapter 1 The business of partnering -- A crisis in management -- Diminishing sources of competitive advantage -- From product-base competition to knowledge-base advantage -- Extending the boundaries of the firm -- The strategic value of partnering -- Partnering and competing supply chains -- The problems of understanding your partners -- Chapter 2 The evolution of partnership-driven business strategies -- Introduction -- The development of supply chain management -- Supply chain networks -- Strategic alliances -- Marketing channels -- Managing buy-sell relationships -- Conclusion -- Chapter 3 The obstacles and drivers of successful partnerships -- Introduction -- Leveraging mutual investments -- Learning from each other -- Governance -- The influence of leadership and control mechanisms -- Understanding partnership performance -- Proactive relationship management -- Summary -- Chapter 4 Relationship marketing: a 'new-old' theory of business relationships -- Marketing foundations -- Relationship marketing rediscovered -- Collaborate or fail -- From power management to relationship management -- The relationship business -- Modelling the marketing relationship -- Managing partnership value -- Building relationship management capabilities -- Summary -- Chapter 5 Understanding partnership and alliance dynamics -- Introduction -- A 'new economic' view of partnerships -- Partnerships as spiral dynamics -- Finding the measure of partnership performance -- Conclusion -- Chapter 6 Working hard at the 'soft' factors -- Introduction -- Evaluating partnership performance -- Opportunities and challenges created through collaborative innovation.

Opportunities and challenges created through partnership quality -- Opportunities and challenges of creating value -- The model of partnership performance -- Summary -- Chapter 7 The Gibbs+Humphries Partnership Types -- Introduction -- Evangelists -- Stable Pragmatists -- Rebellious Teenagers -- Evolving Pessimists -- Captive Sharks -- Cherry Pickers -- No Can Dos -- Deserters -- Summary -- Chapter 8 Making partnerships and alliances work for you -- Management implications -- Determining the right partnership type -- Partnership types and market development -- Relationship management and the Gibbs+Humphries Partnership Types -- The Gibbs+Humphries Partnership Types and marketing -- Conclusion -- Further reading -- Index.