ABSTRACT
I have spent what seems like the best part of my life observing the development of strategic alliances and those groups determined to instil this newborn management science with a degree of rigour and respectability. In fact, it has only been 12 years, and at times I need to remind myself of that fact, especially when I attend conferences and see that the same topics (and sometimes the same speakers) are on the agenda as appeared in my first alliance conference back in 2001! At times it feels like I and many of my visionary colleagues are swimming against the tide of popular management thinking in proposing quality standards and a greater degree of systematisation in this area.
