Abstract:

Strategic alliances are cooperative relationships between firms which have been subject of numerous researches during the past decades. The objective of the paper is to introduce the most frequent theories of strategic alliance formation and demonstrate inter-firm cooperation through the practice of a chosen firm. First, the strategic alliance is introduced with reference to the literature as a special organisation form, followed by the principal theories of alliance formation, such as transaction cost theory, the resource-based view, organisational learning theory and the theory of embeddedness. Then a concrete example follows, the conditions of such business relations are described from the viewpoint of a firm operating in the machinery industry in the South Moravian Region. As a result, several forms of inter-firm cooperation are demonstrated and the experiences related to them are compared with the ones from previous research published in academic journals. The example of the investigated firm shows that forming strategic alliances with business partners can be a vehicle of growth and development in small firms. The paper is based on primary data acquired from semi-qualitative research and secondary data gathered from the literature.