Chapter 2 Alliance Transformation in Emerging Markets

The purpose of this chapter is to introduce emerging markets (EMs) and then European transition economies in which alliance transformation takes place. Considering the complexity of EMs, researchers and academics feel pressure in recent years to seek comprehensive understanding of the EM context ( Kumar and Srivastava, 2019 ). Transition economies are a special category of EMs, which have attracted many multinational firms to invest after the fall of Berlin wall in the beginning of 1990s. This region constitutes of former soviet bloc, located in central and eastern Europe. After a short introduction and discussion on the importance on EMs, development process within EMs is taken up. Transition economies are then introduced, particularly in relation to their link with the European Union. Aims and research questions are outlined to display the objective and direction of the study. The next section discusses major contributions, followed by limitations of the study describing what issues are left out to concentrate on the research object. Finally, it is shortly described what other chapters are coming and what they deal with.