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The governance of multilateral alliances is an increasingly important strategic option as firms face discontinuities and disruptions. But not all multilateral alliances present the same governance and leadership challenges. The partners' co-specialized contributions to the alliance call for more creative overall alliance management and for more open-ended forms of collaboration. Governance options range from a very autocratic "hub-and-spoke" model to democratic and participative governance. This puts different demands on the approach and the leadership skills required from the alliance managers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cover Story All corporations engaged in multiple fines of business face a paramount strategic imperative imposed by the stock market: Maximizing the profitable growth that is possible from their constituent [...]

While all of us would easily recognize that language matters in the obvious case of different national languages, or in formal strategic communication to employees or stakeholders, the importance of a firm's informal language as an enabler or constraint for growth and strategic agility has not been recognized. Using qualitative data from in-depth empirical comparative studies, this article develops a conceptual framework for diagnosing two types of strategic language traps and their origins commonly encountered by firms as they attempt to enter new business domains as well as in acquisition driven growth and alliances. It proposes solutions for companies to overcome their specific language trap and enable strategic agility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]