Strategic alliances have emerged as an important element of firms' strategies. Following suit, research on alliances has blossomed, concentrating on the various forms alliances take, the reasons of their existence, and increasingly embracing questions of alliance management and governance tasks....

Using the configurational approach, I synthesize alliance governance research by interpreting alliance governance systems as organizational form. I identify and analyze a set of design and contingency parameters and their interrelationships resulting in five configurations of alliance governance...