In spite of the growing importance of strategic alliances, few studies have been done in Brazil to analyze the process of creation and consolidation of international and national strategic alliances. One of the reasons for such deficiency is the lack of a consistent theoretical basis that can be used as reference for the development of empirical works about strategic alliances in Brazil. This article tries to close this gap by analyzing two theories considered relevant for the study of strategic alliances: the Resource-Based-Theory of the Firm and the Organizational Learning Theory. The various studies presented in this article show that both theories seem appropriate to analyze strategic alliances. First because in many cases those alliances are used as means of gaining access to the valuable resources of other firms. Second because the success of an alliance depends so much on the process of transfering knowledge and abilities from one partner to another during the alliance.
strategic alliances; resource-based theory of the firm; interorganizational learning theory
