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Alliance Capitalism and Global Business
by John H. Dunning, New York and London: Routledge, 1997
Starting with Dunning [1958], John Dunning has been the author, co-author, editor, co-editor, or general editor of well over fifty books and monographs. Dunning's magnum opus, Multinational Enterprises and the Global Economy [Dunning 1993], was published just four years ago, and read by all. So why read another book by Dunning, especially an edited volume of previously published, if somewhat revised, papers?
To address this question, this review answers a standard set of questions about the book: What is in it; how good is it; for whom is it appropriate; and, ultimately, should it be read and/or purchased?
What is in it? This book contains a collection of papers written by John Dunning over the past few years (roughly 1994-1997). As best as I can figure out, most of the papers have already been published (in Transnational Corporations, Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of International Trade Law, and so on, and in volumes edited by others). ' But the papers have been revised (to what extent it is impossible to determine) for this volume in order to link them together into common themes.
As the title of the book suggests, the major themes of the book, are "alliance capitalism" and its implications for several aspects of global business operations. Dunning defines "alliance capitalism" as "the organization of production and transactions as involving both co-operation and competition between wealth-creating agents" (p. 73). Dunning posits that historically firms have gained strategic assets they did not possess (and which they could not economically generate internally) through mergers and acquisitions. He finds that the prevalence of alliance capitalism is relatively new, at least among MNEs based in North America and Europe. "Alliance capitalism" differs from M&A in three respects: "it involves only a part (sometimes a minor part) of the collaborating firms' activities; it may entail no change of ownership...