International alliance refers to the formal agreements among sovereign states to cooperate for various purposes. These alliances can be military in nature like NATO or political unions such as the European Union. They can also be resource or cultural in nature. They are the foundation of many global policies.
Traditionally, states have pursued alliances to balance their power with each other. This is a central tenet of the state-centric theory (or realism) that has been the dominant explanation of world politics. Alliances serve as a check on the aims of one or more powerful countries, thus deterring them from attaining hegemony. For example, the repeated attempts of King Louis XIV of France (reigned 1643-1715) to dominate continental Europe were thwarted by alliances formed against him; and Napoleon was ultimately defeated in his attempt to dominate the world by similar means.
In the business realm, multinational enterprises (MNEs) struggle with the decision of whether to exploit their own resources or to partner with other companies that have access to the required resources in new international markets. This paper studies the interaction between network centrality, resource ownership and market attractiveness in the choice of international expansion modes by a sample of 164 MNEs in a five-year window. This reveals that MNEs are more likely to adopt an exploitative strategy if they are less well connected in their networks and own the least of their required resources, and more inclined to opt for a cooperative strategy when the market is highly attractive.