1. Global Information Alliance Corporate alliance announcements frequently headline news business press EXP1: April 22, 2001. Nokia, Ericsson and Motorola announced a joint corporate efforts to create a universal standard for communications between cell phone, and pagers. EXP2: June 13, 2001. More than 10 Japanese companies will establish a joint-venture to develop semi-conductor-manufacturing products.

2. Research on this Issue Frequent commercial alliances among business companies inspired numerous research on the issue of strategic alliance. Which types of company most frequently engage in inter-organizational alliances? What affects companies decisions to form alliance? How companies in alliance govern the inter- organizational relationships? What is the consequences of strategic alliance for involving companies.

3. More Research Questions From network structures perspective Is the trend of alliance formation accelerating or decreasing over years? Do alliance proliferate randomly or certain players dominate and control relations? How network properties such as density and centrality change over time? What cleavages emerge among these networks along national or industrial dimensions?

4. Multi-industry Networks of Information Firms Very few empirical data of multi-industry networks of information firms Case studies of a few specific companies Studies restricted in one industry or a particular geographic location One similar research done by Hagedoorn and Schakenraad in 1992 collected data of more than 4000 alliances among 3500 firms from 1980 to 1989. But no updated dataset to research alliances in 1990s.

5. New Research Knoke’s Global Information Sector Project identified the core industries, organizations, and relationships defining the sector’s networks and explained how the structure of interorganizational ties changed during the decade 1989-1998 Project participants also include Anne Genereux, and Song Yang.

6. What is Information Sector To facilitate comparability across the U.S. Canada, and Mexico, North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) was recently developed to replaced U.S. Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) used for half a century NAICS classified previously numerous industries into 24 two-digit sectors. One of them is called “Information Sector” including publishing, motion pictures, broadcasting, telecommunications, information service, and data processing

7. Additions and Exclusions To add computer and electronic product manufacturing and semiconductor machinery manufacturing industry To exclude electrical equipment, appliance, and component manufacturing subsectors

8. Identify Organizations Fortune 500 from 1989 to 1994, Fortune 1000 from 1995 to present, Global 500 during the decade. Fortune and Global used different industry code from NAICS, but enough comparability permits close match between the two schema Pertain to Global Information Sector, several industries are identified, computer, data service, electric, electronic, entertainment, office equipment, publishing/printing, telecommunications, software and computer peripherals.

9. IT organizations Each year of the decade of 1989 to 1998, if organizations in the above industries appear in the Fortune and Global list, it will be included in the sample. The initial search produced 250 organizations. Later on the selected organizations are ranked within each industry by revenue, and lower half in each industry was dropped, producing total number of 145 organizations

10. Identify Events Strategic alliance network is defined as subsets of firms within an organization field that are interconnected by their repeated and overlapping partnerships. Strategic alliance involves at least two partners, that (1) remain independent after the alliance is formed, (2) shared benefits and managerial control over the joint entity, and (3) make continuing contribution in strategic areas

11. Different Types of Alliance Although firms forge alliance for a wide array of different purposes, GIS researchers focused on the following 9 strategic goals, which explain the initial motivation for most alliances Contract License Production Product adaptation R & D Marketing, Industry Standard, Legal political, Equity stake