The document provides an overview of strategic alliances, including their definition, types, factors promoting them, risks and costs, balancing cooperation and competition, and ethics. Strategic alliances are cooperative relationships between independent organizations designed to achieve mutually beneficial goals economically. They can take various forms, from licensing agreements to joint ventures to consortia and networks. Factors driving alliances include new market entry, learning new technologies, and industry shaping. Risks include incompatibility, knowledge leakage, and dependence. Success requires balancing collaboration and competition within the alliance.